The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont by Robert Barr (thriller novels to read .TXT) 📕

nothing but darkness inside, and although we shouted, there was no answer. At last, when we had hewn it large enough for a man to enter, I took with me an electric torch, and stepped inside, the constable following, with crowbar still in hand. I learned, as I had surmised, that we were in the upper hall of a staircase nearly as wide as the one on the outside. A flash of the light showed a door corresponding with the fireplace of the upper landing, and this door not being locked, we entered a large room, rather dimly lighted by strongly barred windows that gave into a blind courtyard, of which there had been no indication heretofore, either outside or inside the castle. Broken glass crunched under our feet, and I saw that the floor was strewn with wine bottles whose necks had been snapped off to save the pulling of the cork. On a mattress at the farther end of the room lay a man with gray hair, and shaggy, unkempt iron-gray beard. He seemed either asleep or dead, but when I turned my electric light full on his face he proved to be still alive, for he rubbed his eyes languidly, and groaned, rather than spoke:--

'Is that you at last, you beast of a butler? Bring me something to eat, in Heaven's name!'

I shook him wider awake. He seemed to be drowsed with drink, and was fearfully emaciated. When I got him on his feet, I noticed then the deformity that characterised one of them. We assisted him through the aperture, and down into the dining-room, where he cried out continually for something to eat, but when we placed food before him, he could scarcely touch it. He became more like a human being when he had drunk two glasses of wine, and I saw at once he was not as old as his gray hair seemed to indicate. There was a haunted look in his eyes, and he watched the door as if apprehensive.

'Where is that butler?' he asked at last.

'Dead,' I replied.

'Did I kill him?'

'No; he fell down the stairway and broke his neck.'

The man laughed harshly.

'Where is my father?'

'Who is your father?'

'Lord Rantremly.'

'He is dead also.'

'How came he to die?'

'He died from a stroke of paralysis on the morning the butler was killed.'

The rescued man made no comment on this, but turned and ate a little more of his food. Then he said to me:--

'Do you know a girl named Sophia Brooks?'

'Yes. For ten years she thought you dead.'

'Ten years! Good God, do you mean to say I've been in there only ten years? Why, I'm an old man. I must be sixty at least.'

'No; you're not much over thirty.'

'Is Sophia--' He stopped, and the haunted look came into his eyes again.

'No. She is all right, and she is here.'

'Here?'

'Somewhere in the grounds. I sent her and the servant out for a walk, and told them not to return till luncheon time, as the constable and I had something to do, and did not wish to be interrupted.'

The man ran his hand through his long tangled beard.

'I should like to be trimmed up a bit before I see Sophia,' he said.

'I can do that for you, my lord,' cried the constable.

'My lord?' echoed the man. 'Oh, yes, I understand. You are a policeman, are you not?'

'Yes, my lord, chief constable.'

'Then I shall give myself up to you. I killed the butler.'

'Oh, impossible, my lord!'

'No, it isn't. The beast, as I called him, was getting old, and one morning he forgot to close the door behind him. I followed him stealthily out, and at the head of the stair planted my foot in the small of his back, which sent him headlong. There was an infernal crash. I did not mean to kill the brute, but merely to escape, and just as I was about to run down the stairway, I was appalled to see my father looking like--looking like--well, I won't attempt to say what he looked like; but all my old fear of him returned. As he strode towards me, along the corridor, I was in such terror that I jumped through the secret door and slammed it shut.'

'Where is the secret door?' I asked.

'The secret door is that fireplace. The whole fireplace moves inward if you push aside the carved ornament at the left-hand corner.'

'Is it a dummy fireplace, then?'

'No, you may build a fire in it, and the smoke will escape up the chimney. But I killed the butler, constable, though not intending it, I swear.'

And now the constable shone forth like the real rough diamond he was.

'My lord, we'll say nothing about that. Legally you didn't do it. You see, there's been an inquest on the butler and the jury brought in the verdict, "Death by accident, through stumbling from the top of the stair." You can't go behind a coroner's inquest, my lord.'

'Indeed,' said his lordship, with the first laugh in which he had indulged for many a year. 'I don't want to go behind anything, constable, I've been behind that accursed chimney too long to wish any further imprisonment.'



7. The Liberation of Wyoming Ed

A man should present the whole truth to his doctor, his lawyer, or his detective. If a doctor is to cure, he must be given the full confidence of the patient; if a lawyer is to win a case he needs to know what tells against his client as well as the points in his favour; if a secret agent is to solve a mystery all the cards should be put on the table. Those who half trust a professional man need not be disappointed when results prove unsatisfactory.

A partial confidence reposed in me led to the liberation of a dangerous criminal, caused me to associate with a robber much against my own inclination, and brought me within danger of the law. Of course, I never pretend to possess that absolute confidence in the law which seems to be the birthright of every Englishman. I have lived too intimately among the machinery of the law, and have seen too many of its ghastly mistakes, to hold it in that blind esteem which appears to be prevalent in the British Isles.

There is a doggerel couplet which typifies this spirit better than anything I can write, and it runs:--


No rogue e'er felt the halter draw,
With a good opinion of the law.


Those lines exemplify the trend of British thought in this direction. If you question a verdict of their courts you are a rogue, and that ends the matter. And yet when an Englishman undertakes to circumvent the law, there is no other man on earth who will go to greater lengths. An amazing people! Never understandable by the sane of other countries.

It was entirely my own fault that I became involved in affairs which were almost indefensible and wholly illegal.

My client first tried to bribe me into compliance with his wishes, which bribe I sternly refused. Then he partially broke down and, quite unconsciously as I take it, made an appeal to the heart--a strange thing for an Englishman to do. My kind heart has ever been my most vulnerable point. We French are sentimentalists. France has before now staked its very existence for an ideal, while other countries fight for continents, cash, or commerce. You cannot pierce me with a lance of gold, but wave a wand of sympathy, and I am yours.

There waited upon me in my flat a man who gave his name as Douglas Sanderson, which may or may not have been his legitimate title. This was a question into which I never probed, and at the moment of writing am as ignorant of his true cognomen, if that was not it, as on the morning he first met me. He was an elderly man of natural dignity and sobriety, slow in speech, almost sombre in dress. His costume was not quite that of a professional man, and not quite that of a gentleman. I at once recognised the order to which he belonged, and a most difficult class it is to deal with. He was the confidential servant or steward of some ancient and probably noble family, embodying in himself all the faults and virtues, each a trifle accentuated, of the line he served, and to which, in order to produce him and his like, his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had doubtless been attached. It is frequently the case that the honour of the house he serves is more dear to him than it is to the representative of that house. Such a man is almost always the repository of family secrets; a repository whose inviolability gold cannot affect, threats sway, or cajolery influence.

I knew, when I looked at him, that practically I was looking at his master, for I have known many cases where even the personal appearance of the two was almost identical, which may have given rise to the English phrase, 'Like master, like man.' The servant was a little more haughty, a little less kind, a little more exclusive, a little less confidential, a little more condescending, a little less human, a little more Tory, and altogether a little less pleasant and easy person to deal with.

'Sir,' he began, when I had waved him to a seat, 'I am a very rich man, and can afford to pay well for the commission I request you to undertake. To ask you to name your own terms may seem unbusinesslike, so I may say at the outset I am not a business man. The service I shall ask will involve the utmost secrecy, and for that I am willing to pay. It may expose you to risk of limb or liberty, and for that I am willing to pay. It will probably necessitate the expenditure of a large sum of money; that sum is at your disposal.'

Here he paused; he had spoken slowly and impressively, with a touch of arrogance in his tone which aroused to his prejudice, the combativeness latent in my nature. However, at this juncture I merely bowed my head, and replied in accents almost as supercilious as his own:--

'The task must either be unworthy or unwelcome. In mentioning first the compensation, you are inverting the natural order of things. You should state at the outset what you expect me to do, then, if I accept the commission, it is time to discuss the details of expenditure.'

Either he had not looked for such a reply, or was loath to open his budget, for he remained a few moments with eyes bent upon the floor, and lips compressed in silence. At last he went on, without change of inflection, without any diminution of that air of condescension, which had so exasperated me in the beginning, and which was preparing a downfall for himself that would rudely shake the cold dignity which encompassed him like a cloak:--

'It is difficult for a father to confide in a complete stranger the vagaries of a beloved son, and before doing so you must pledge your word that my communication will be regarded as strictly confidential.'

'Cela va sans dire.'

'I do not understand French,' said Mr. Sanderson severely, as if the use of the phrase were an insult