The Doings of Raffles Haw by Arthur Conan Doyle (the snowy day read aloud TXT) 📕

“I await my family’s congratulations,” she said, with her head in the air. “Mr. Raffles Haw has been here, and he has asked me to be his wife.”

“The deuce he did!” cried the old man. “And you said—?”

“I am to see him again.”

“And you will say—?”

“I will accept him.”

“You were always a good girl, Laura,” said old McIntyre, standing on his tiptoes to kiss her.

“But Laura, Laura, how about Hector?” asked Robert in mild remonstrance.

“Oh, I have written to him,” his sister answered carelessly. “I wish you would be good enough to post the letter.”

CHAPTER X.

THE GREAT SECRET.

And so Laura McIntyre became duly engaged to Raffles Haw, and old McIntyre grew even more hungry-looking as he felt himself a step nearer to the source of wealth, while Robert thought less of work than ever, and never gave as much as a thought to the great canvas which still stood, dust-covered, upon his easel. Haw gave Laura an engagement ring of old gold, with a great blazing diamond bulging out of it. There was little talk about the matter, however, for it was Haw’s wish that all should be done very quietly. Nearly all his evenings were spent at Elmdene, where he and Laura would build up the most colossal schemes of philanthropy for the future. With a map stretched out on the table in front of them, these two young people would, as it were, hover over the world, planning, devising, and improving.

“Bless the girl!” said old McIntyre to his son; “she speaks about it as if she were born to millions. Maybe, when once she is married, she won’t be so ready to chuck her money into every mad scheme that her husband can think of.”

“Laura is greatly changed,” Robert answered; “she has grown much more serious in her ideas.”

“You wait a bit!” sniggered his father. “She is a good girl, is Laura, and she knows what she is about. She’s not a girl to let her old dad go to the wall if she can set him right. It’s a pretty state of things,” he added bitterly: “here’s my daughter going to marry a man who thinks no more of gold than I used to of gun-metal; and here’s my son going about with all the money he cares to ask for to help every ne’er-do-well in Staffordshire; and here’s their father, who loved them and cared for them, and brought them both up, without money enough very often to buy a bottle of brandy. I don’t know what your poor dear mother would have thought of it.”

“You have only to ask for what you want.”

“Yes, as if I were a five-year-old child. But I tell you, Robert, I’ll have my rights, and if I can’t get them one way I will another. I won’t be treated as if I were no one. And there’s one thing: if I am to be this man’s pa-in-law, I’ll want to know something about him and his money first. We may be poor, but we are honest. I’ll up to the Hall now, and have it out with him.” He seized his hat and stick and made for the door.

“No, no, father,” cried Robert, catching him by the sleeve. “You had better leave the matter alone. Mr. Haw is a very sensitive man. He would not like to be examined upon such a point. It might lead to a serious quarrel. I beg that you will not go.”

“I am not to be put off for ever,” snarled the old man, who had been drinking heavily. “I’ll put my foot down now, once and for ever.” He tugged at his sleeve to free himself from his son’s grasp.

“At least you shall not go without Laura knowing. I will call her down, and we shall have her opinion.”

“Oh, I don’t want to have any scenes,” said McIntyre sulkily, relaxing his efforts. He lived in dread of his daughter, and at his worst moments the mention of her name would serve to restrain him.

“Besides,” said Robert, “I have not the slightest doubt that Raffles Haw will see the necessity for giving us some sort of explanation before matters go further. He must understand that we have some claim now to be taken into his confidence.”

He had hardly spoken when there was a tap at the door, and the man of whom they were speaking walked in.

“Good-morning, Mr. McIntyre,” said he. “Robert, would you mind stepping up to the Hall with me? I want to have a little business chat.” He looked serious, like a man who is carrying out something which he has well weighed.

They walked up together with hardly a word on either side. Raffles Haw was absorbed in his own thoughts. Robert felt expectant and nervous, for he knew that something of importance lay before him. The winter had almost passed now, and the first young shoots were beginning to peep out timidly in the face of the wind and the rain of an English March. The snows were gone, but the countryside looked bleaker and drearier, all shrouded in the haze from the damp, sodden meadows.

“By the way, Robert,” said Raffles Haw suddenly, as they walked up the Avenue. “Has your great Roman picture gone to London?”

“I have not finished it yet.”

“But I know that you are a quick worker. You must be nearly at the end of it.”

“No, I am afraid that it has not advanced much since you saw it. For one thing, the light has not been very good.”

Raffles Haw said nothing, but a pained expression flashed over his face. When they reached the house he led the way through the museum. Two great metal cases were lying on the floor.

“I have a small addition there to the gem collection,” he remarked as he passed. “They only arrived last night, and I have not opened them yet, but I am given to understand from the letters and invoices that there are some fine specimens. We might arrange them this afternoon, if you care to assist me. Let us go into the smoking-room now.”

He threw himself down into a settee, and motioned Robert into the armchair in front of him.

“Light a cigar,” he said. “Press the spring if there is any refreshment which you would like. Now, my dear Robert, confess to me in the first place that you have often thought me mad.”

The charge was so direct and so true that the young artist hesitated, hardly knowing how to answer.

“My dear boy, I do not blame you. It was the most natural thing in the world. I should have looked upon anyone as a madman who had talked to me as I have talked to you. But for all that, Robert, you were wrong, and I have never yet in our conversations proposed any scheme which it was not well within my power to carry out. I tell you in all sober earnest that the amount of my income is limited only by my desire, and that all the bankers and financiers combined could not furnish the sums which I can put forward without an effort.”

“I have had ample proof of your immense wealth,” said Robert.

“And you are very naturally curious as to how that wealth was obtained. Well, I can tell you one thing. The money is perfectly clean. I have robbed no one, cheated no one, sweated no one, ground no one down in the gaining of it. I can read your father’s eye, Robert. I can see that he has done me an injustice in this matter. Well, perhaps he is not to be blamed. Perhaps I also might think uncharitable things if I were In his place. But that is why I now give an explanation to you, Robert, and not to him. You, at least, have trusted me, and you have a right, before I become one of your family, to know all that I can tell you. Laura also has trusted me, but I know well that she is content still to trust me.”

“I would not intrude upon your secrets, Mr. Haw,” said Robert, “but of course I cannot deny that I should be very proud and pleased if you cared to confide them to me.”

“And I will. Not all. I do not think that I shall ever, while I live, tell all. But I shall leave directions behind me so that when I die you may be able to carry on my unfinished work. I shall tell you where those directions are to be found. In the meantime, you must be content to learn the effects which I produce without knowing every detail as to the means.”

Robert settled himself down in his chair and concentrated his attention upon his companion’s words, while Haw bent forward his eager, earnest face, like a man who knows the value of the words which he is saying.

“You are already aware,” he remarked, “that I have devoted a great deal of energy and of time to the study of chemistry.”

“So you told me.”

“I commenced my studies under a famous English chemist, I continued them under the best man in France, and I completed them in the most celebrated laboratory of Germany. I was not rich, but my father had left me enough to keep me comfortably, and by living economically I had a sum at my command which enabled me to carry out my studies in a very complete way. When I returned to England I built myself a laboratory in a quiet country place where I could work without distraction or interruption. There I began a series of investigations which soon took me into regions of science to which none of the three famous men who taught me had ever penetrated.

“You say, Robert, that you have some slight knowledge of chemistry, and you will find it easier to follow what I say. Chemistry is to a large extent an empirical science, and the chance experiment may lead to greater results than could, with our present data, be derived from the closest study or the keenest reasoning. The most important chemical discoveries from the first manufacture of glass to the whitening and refining of sugar have all been due to some happy chance which might have befallen a mere dabbler as easily as a deep student.

“Well, it was to such a chance that my own great discovery—perhaps the greatest that the world has seen—was due, though I may claim the credit of having originated the line of thought which led up to it. I had frequently speculated as to the effect which powerful currents of electricity exercise upon any substance through which they are poured for a considerable time. I did not here mean such feeble currents as are passed along a telegraph wire, but I mean the very highest possible developments. Well, I tried a series of experiments upon this point. I found that in liquids, and in compounds, the force had a disintegrating effect. The well-known experiment of the electrolysis of water will, of course, occur to you. But I found that in the case of elemental solids the effect was a remarkable one. The element slowly decreased in weight, without perceptibly altering in composition. I hope that I make myself clear to you?”

“I follow you entirely,” said Robert, deeply interested in his companion’s narrative.

“I tried upon several elements, and always with the same result. In every case an hour’s current would produce a perceptible loss of weight. My theory at that stage was that there was a loosening of the molecules caused by the electric fluid, and that a certain number of these molecules were shed