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

hands. Once more, for the last time, that devil’s cry broke the deep stillness of the August morning, throbbing a little as though with a new fear, dying away as though the fingers which crushed it back down the straining throat had indeed crushed with it the last flicker of some unholy life.

When Doctor Harrison made his hurried appearance, a few moments later, he found Dominey seated upon the terrace, furiously smoking a cigarette. On the ground, a few yards away, lay something black and motionless.

“What is it?” the doctor gasped.

For the first time Dominey showed some signs of a lack of self-control. His voice was choked and uneven.

“Go and look at it, Doctor,” he said. “It’s tied up, hand and foot. You can see where the spirit of Roger Unthank has hidden itself.”

“Bosh!” the doctor answered, with grim contempt. “It’s Roger Unthank himself. The beast!”

A little stream of servants came running out. Dominey gave a few orders quickly.

“Ring up the garage,” he directed, “and I shall want one of the men to go into Norwich to the hospital. Doctor, will you go up and see Lady Dominey?”

The habits of a lifetime broke down. Parkins, the immaculate, the silent, the perfect automaton, asked an eager question.

“What is it, sir?”

There was the sound of a window opening overhead. At that moment Parkins would not have asked in vain for an annuity. Dominey glanced at the little semicircle of servants and raised his voice.

“It is the end, I trust, of these foolish superstitions about Roger Unthank’s ghost. There lies Roger Unthank, half beast, half man. For some reason or other⁠—some lunatic’s reason, of course⁠—he has chosen to hide himself in the Black Wood all these years. His mother, I presume, has been his accomplice and taken him food. He is still alive but in a disgusting state.”

There was a little awed murmur. Dominey’s voice had become quite matter of fact.

“I suppose,” he continued, “his first idea was to revenge himself upon us and this household, by whom he imagined himself badly treated. The man, however, was half a madman when he came to the neighbourhood and has behaved like one ever since.⁠—Johnson,” Dominey continued, singling out a sturdy footman with sound common sense, “get ready to take this creature into Norwich Hospital. Say that if I do not come in during the day, a letter of explanation will follow from me. The rest of you, with the exception of Parkins, please go to bed.”

With little exclamations of wonder they began to disperse. Then one of them paused and pointed across the park. Moving with incredible swiftness came the gaunt, black figure of Rachael Unthank, swaying sometimes on her feet, yet in their midst before they could realise it. She staggered to the prostrate body and threw herself upon her knees. Her hands rested upon the unseen face, her eyes glared across at Dominey.

“So you’ve got him at last!” she gasped.

“Mrs. Unthank,” Dominey said sternly, “you are in time to accompany your son to the hospital at Norwich. The car will be here in two minutes. I have nothing to say to you. Your own conscience should be sufficient punishment for keeping that poor creature alive in such a fashion and ministering during my absence to his accursed desire for vengeance.”

“He would have died if I hadn’t brought him food,” she muttered. “I have wept all the tears a woman’s broken heart could wring out, beseeching him to come back to me.”

“Yet,” Dominey insisted, “you shared his foul plot for vengeance against a harmless woman. You let him come and make his ghoulish noises, night by night, under these windows, without a word of remonstrance. You knew very well what their accursed object was⁠—you, with a delicate woman in your charge who trusted you. You are an evil pair, but of the two you are worse than your half-witted son.”

The woman made no reply. She was still on her knees, bending over the prostrate figure, from whose lips now came a faint moaning. Then the lights of the car flashed out as it left the garage, passed through the iron gates and drew up a few yards away.

“Help him in,” Dominey ordered. “You can loosen his cords, Johnson, as soon as you have started. He has very little strength. Tell them at the hospital I shall probably be there during the day, or tomorrow.”

With a little shiver the two men stooped to their task. Their prisoner muttered to himself all the time, but made no resistance. Rachael Unthank, as she stepped in to take her place by his side, turned once more to Dominey. She was a broken woman.

“You’re rid of us,” she sobbed, “perhaps forever.⁠—You’ve said harsh things of both of us. Roger isn’t always⁠—so bad. Sometimes he’s more gentle than at others. You’d have thought then that he was just a baby, living there for love of the wind and the trees and the birds. If he comes to⁠—”

Her voice broke. Dominey’s reply was swift and not unkind. He pointed to the window above.

“If Lady Dominey recovers, you and your son are forgiven. If she never recovers, I wish you both the blackest corner of hell.”

The car drove off. Doctor Harrison met Dominey on the threshold as he turned towards the house.

“Her ladyship is unconscious now,” he announced. “Perhaps that is a good sign. I never liked that unnatural calm. She’ll be unconscious, I think, for a great many hours. For God’s sake, come and get a whisky and soda and give me one!”

The early morning sunshine lay upon the park when the two men at last separated. They stood for a moment looking out. From the Black Wood came the whirr of a saw. The little troop of men had left their tents. The crash of a fallen tree heralded their morning’s work.

“You are still going on with that?” the doctor asked.

“To the very last stump of a tree, to the last bush, to the last cluster of weeds,” Dominey replied,