The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim (books to read now txt) 📕

Mangan⁠—not the fear of being arrested for having caused the death of Roger Unthank. I’d have stood my trial for that at any moment. It was the other thing that broke me up.”

“Quite so,” Mangan murmured sympathetically. “As a matter of fact, you were perfectly safe from arrest, as it happened. The body of Roger Unthank has never been found from that day to this.”

“If it had⁠—”

“You must have been charged with either murder or manslaughter.”

Dominey abandoned his post at the window and raised his glass of sherry to his lips. The tragical side of these reminiscences seemed, so far as he was concerned, to have passed.

“I suppose,” he remarked, “it was the disappearance of the body which has given rise to all this talk as to his spirit still inhabiting the Black Wood.”

“Without a doubt,” the lawyer acquiesced. “The place had a bad name already, as you know. As it is, I don’t suppose there’s a villager here would cross the park in that direction after dark.”

Dominey glanced at his watch and led the way from the room.

“After dinner,” he promised, “I’ll tell you a few West African superstitions which will make our local one seem anemic.”

IX

“I certainly offer you my heartiest congratulations upon your cellars, Sir Everard,” his guest said, as he sipped his third glass of port that evening. “This is the finest glass of seventy I’ve drunk for a long time, and this new fellow I’ve sent you down⁠—Parkins⁠—tells me there’s any quantity of it.”

“It has had a pretty long rest,” Dominey observed.

“I was looking through the cellar-book before dinner,” the lawyer went on, “and I see that you still have forty-seven and forty-eight, and a small quantity of two older vintages. Something ought to be done about those.”

“We will try one of them tomorrow night,” Dominey suggested. “We might spend half an hour or so in the cellars, if we have any time to spare.”

“And another half an hour,” Mr. Mangan said gravely, “I should like to spend in interviewing Mrs. Unthank. Apart from any other question, I do not for one moment believe that she is the proper person to be entrusted with the care of Lady Dominey. I made up my mind to speak to you on this subject, Sir Everard, as soon as we had arrived here.”

“Mrs. Unthank was old Mr. Felbrigg’s housekeeper and my wife’s nurse when she was a child,” Dominey reminded his companion. “Whatever her faults may be, I believe she is devoted to Lady Dominey.”

“She may be devoted to your wife,” the lawyer admitted, “but I am convinced that she is your enemy. The situation doesn’t seem to me to be consistent. Mrs. Unthank is firmly convinced that, whether in fair fight or not, you killed her son. Lady Dominey believes that, too, and it was the sight of you after the fight that sent her insane. I cannot but believe that it would be far better for Lady Dominey to have someone with her unconnected with this unfortunate chapter of your past.”

“We will consult Doctor Harrison tomorrow,” Dominey said. “I am very glad you came down with me, Mangan,” he went on, after a minute’s hesitation. “I find it very difficult to get back into the atmosphere of those days. I even find it hard sometimes,” he added, with a curious little glance across the table, “to believe that I am the same man.”

“Not so hard as I have done more than once,” Mr. Mangan confessed.

“Tell me exactly in what respects you consider me changed?” Dominey insisted.

“You seem to have lost a certain pliability, or perhaps I ought to call it looseness of disposition,” he admitted. “There are many things connected with the past which I find it almost impossible to associate with you. For a trifling instance,” he went on, with a slight smile, inclining his head towards his host’s untasted glass. “You don’t drink port like any Dominey I ever knew.”

“I’m afraid that I never acquired the taste for port,” Dominey observed.

The lawyer gazed at him with raised eyebrows.

“Not acquired the taste for port,” he repeated blankly.

“I should have said reacquired,” Dominey hastened to explain. “You see, in the bush we drank a simply frightful amount of spirits, and that vitiates the taste for all wine.”

The lawyer glanced enviously at his host’s fine bronzed complexion and clear eyes.

“You haven’t the appearance of ever having drunk anything, Sir Everard,” he observed frankly. “One finds it hard to believe the stories that were going about ten or fifteen years ago.”

“The Dominey constitution, I suppose!”

The new butler entered the room noiselessly and came to his master’s chair.

“I have served coffee in the library, sir,” he announced. “Mr. Middleton, the gamekeeper, has just called, and asks if he could have a word with you before he goes to bed tonight, sir. He seems in a very nervous and uneasy state.”

“He can come to the library at once,” Dominey directed; “that is, if you are ready for your coffee, Mangan.”

“Indeed I am,” the lawyer assented, rising. “A great treat, that wine. One thing the London restaurants can’t give us. Port should never be drunk away from the place where it was laid down.”

The two men made their way across the very fine hall, the walls of which had suffered a little through lack of heating, into the library, and seated themselves in easy-chairs before the blazing log fire. Parkins silently served them with coffee and brandy. He had scarcely left the room before there was a timid knock and Middleton made his somewhat hesitating entrance.

“Come in and close the door,” Dominey directed. “What is it, Middleton? Parkins says you wish to speak to me.”

The man came hesitatingly forward. He was obviously distressed and uneasy, and found speech difficult. His face glistened with the rain which had found its way, too, in long streaks down his velveteen coat. His white hair was wind-tossed and disarranged.

“Bad night,” Dominey remarked.

“It’s to save its being a worse one that I’m here, Squire,” the old man