28. CHAPTER XXVIII
So the Second Act ended.
Turning to the Third Act, Henry looked wearily at the pages as he let
them slip through his fingers. Both in mind and body, he began to feel the
need of repose.
In one important respect, the later portion of the manuscript differed
from the pages which he had just been reading. Signs of an overwrought
brain showed themselves, here and there, as the outline of the play
approached its end. The handwriting grew worse and worse. Some of the
longer sentences were left unfinished. In the exchange of dialogue,
questions and answers were not always attributed respectively to the right
speaker. At certain intervals the writer's failing intelligence seemed to
recover itself for a while; only to relapse again, and to lose the thread of
the narrative more hopelessly than ever.
After reading one or two of the more coherent passages Henry recoiled
from the ever-darkening horror of the story. He closed the manuscript,
heartsick and exhausted, and threw himself on his bed to rest. The door
opened almost at the same moment. Lord Montbarry entered the room.
'We have just returned from the Opera,'
he said;
'and we have
heard the news of that miserable woman's death. They say you spoke to her
in her last moments; and I want to hear how it happened.'
'You shall hear how it happened,'
Henry answered;
'and more than
that. You are now the head of the family, Stephen; and I feel bound, in
the position which oppresses me, to leave you to decide what ought to be
done.'
With those introductory words, he told his brother how the Countess's play
had come into his hands.
'Read the first few pages,'
he said.
'I am
anxious to know whether the same impression is produced on both of us.'
Before Lord Montbarry had got half-way through the First Act, he
stopped, and looked at his brother.
'What does she mean by boasting of
this as her own invention?'
he asked.
'Was she too crazy to remember that
these things really happened?'
This was enough for Henry: the same impression had been produced on
both of them.
'You will do as you please,'
he said.
'But if you will
be guided by me, spare yourself the reading of those pages to come, which
describe our brother's terrible expiation of his heartless marriage.'
'Have you read it all, Henry?'
'Not all. I shrank from reading some of the latter part of it. Neither
you nor I saw much of our elder brother after we left school; and, for my part,
I felt, and never scrupled to express my feeling, that he behaved infamously
to Agnes. But when I read that unconscious confession of the murderous
conspiracy to which he fell a victim, I remembered, with something
like remorse, that the same mother bore us. I have felt for him to-night,
what I am ashamed to think I never felt for him before.'
Lord Montbarry took his brother's hand.
'You are a good fellow, Henry,'
he said;
'but are you quite
sure that you have not been needlessly distressing yourself? Because some of
this crazy creature's writing accidentally tells what we know to be the truth,
does it follow that all the rest is to be relied on to the end?'
'There is no possible doubt of it,'
Henry replied.
'No possible doubt?'
his brother repeated.
'I shall go on
with my reading, Henry — and see what justification there may be for that
confident conclusion of yours.'
He read on steadily, until he had reached the end of the Second Act.
Then he looked up.
'Do you really believe that the mutilated remains which you discovered
this morning are the remains of our brother?'
he asked.
'And do you
believe it on such evidence as this?'
Henry answered silently by a sign in the affirmative.
Lord Montbarry checked himself — evidently on the point of entering an
indignant protest.
'You acknowledge that you have not read the later scenes of the
piece,'
he said.
'Don't be childish, Henry! If you persist in pinning your faith on
such stuff as this, the least you can do is to make yourself thoroughly
acquainted with it. Will you read the Third Act? No? Then I shall read it
to you.'
He turned to the Third Act, and ran over those fragmentary passages
which were clearly enough written and expressed to be intelligible to the
mind of a stranger.
'Here is a scene in the vaults of the palace,'
he began.
'The
victim of the conspiracy is sleeping on his miserable bed; and the Baron and
the Countess are considering the position in which they stand. The Countess
(as well as I can make it out) has raised the money that is wanted by borrowing
on the security of her jewels at Frankfort; and the Courier upstairs is still
declared by the Doctor to have a chance of recovery. What are the conspirators
to do, if the man does recover? The cautious Baron suggests setting
the prisoner free. If he ventures to appeal to the law, it is easy to declare
that he is subject to insane delusion, and to call his own wife as witness.
On the other hand, if the Courier dies, how is the sequestrated and unknown
nobleman to be put out of the way? Passively, by letting him starve
in his prison? No: the Baron is a man of refined tastes; he dislikes needless
cruelty. The active policy remains — say, assassination by the knife of a
hired bravo? The Baron objects to trusting an accomplice; also to spending
money on anyone but himself. Shall they drop their prisoner into the
canal? The Baron declines to trust water; water will show him on the
surface. Shall they set his bed on fire? An excellent idea; but the smoke
might be seen. No: the circumstances being now entirely altered, poisoning
him presents the easiest way out of it. He has simply become a superfluous
person. The cheapest poison will do. — Is it possible, Henry, that you
believe this consultation really took place?'
Henry made no reply. The succession of the questions that had just
been read to him, exactly followed the succession of the dreams that had
terrified Mrs. Norbury, on the two nights which she had passed in the
hotel. It was useless to point out this coincidence to his brother. He only
said,
'Go on.'
Lord Montbarry turned the pages until he came to the next intelligible
passage.
'Here,'
he proceeded,
'is a double scene on the stage — so
far as I can understand the sketch of it. The Doctor is upstairs, innocently
writing his certificate of my Lord's decease, by the dead Courier's bedside.
Down in the vaults, the Baron stands by the corpse of the poisoned lord,
preparing the strong chemical acids which are to reduce it to a heap of ashes
— Surely, it is not worth while to trouble ourselves with deciphering such
melodramatic horrors as these? Let us get on! let us get on!'
He turned the leaves again; attempting vainly to discover the meaning
of the confused scenes that followed. On the last page but one, he found
the last intelligible sentences.
'The Third Act seems to be divided,'
he said,
'into two Parts
or Tab-leaux. I think I can read the writing at the beginning of the Second Part.
The Baron and the Countess open the scene. The Baron's hands are mysteriously
concealed by gloves. He has reduced the body to ashes by his
own system of cremation, with the exception of the head — '
Henry interrupted his brother there.
'Don't read any more!'
he
exclaimed.
'Let us do the Countess justice,'
Lord Montbarry persisted.
'There are
not half a dozen lines more that I can make out! The accidental breaking
of his jar of acid has burnt the Baron's hands severely. He is still unable to
proceed to the destruction of the head — and the Countess is woman
enough (with all her wickedness) to shrink from attempting to take his
place — when the first news is received of the coming arrival of the commission
of inquiry despatched by the insurance offices. The Baron feels no
alarm. Inquire as the commission may, it is the natural death of the Courier
(in my Lord's character) that they are blindly investigating. The head
not being destroyed, the obvious alternative is to hide it — and the Baron is
equal to the occasion. His studies in the old library have informed him of a
safe place of concealment in the palace. The Countess may recoil from
handling the acids and watching the process of cremation; but she can
surely sprinkle a little disinfecting powder — '
'No more!'
Henry reiterated.
'No more!'
'There is no more that can be read, my dear fellow. The last page looks
like sheer delirium. She may well have told you that her invention had
failed her!'
'Face the truth honestly, Stephen, and say her memory.'
Lord Montbarry rose from the table at which he had been sitting, and
looked at his brother with pitying eyes.
'Your nerves are out of order, Henry,'
he said.
'And no
wonder, after
that frightful discovery under the hearth-stone. We won't dispute about it;
we will wait a day or two until you are quite yourself again. In the
meantime, let us understand each other on one point at least. You leave
the question of what is to be done with these pages of writing to me, as
the head of the family?'
'I do.'
Lord Montbarry quietly took up the manuscript, and threw it into the
fire.
'Let this rubbish be of some use,'
he said, holding the pages down
with the poker.
'The room is getting chilly — the Countess's play will set
some of these charred logs flaming again.'
He waited a little at the
fire-place, and returned to his brother.
'Now, Henry, I have a last word to
say, and then I have done. I am ready to admit that you have stumbled, by an
unlucky chance, on the proof of a crime committed in the old days of the
palace, nobody knows how long ago. With that one concession, I dispute
everything else. Rather than agree in the opinion you have formed, I won't
believe anything that has happened. The supernatural influences that some
of us felt when we first slept in this hotel — your loss of appetite, our
sister's dreadful dreams, the smell that overpowered Francis, and the head
that appeared to Agnes — I declare them all to be sheer delusions! I believe
in nothing, nothing, nothing!'
He opened the door to go out, and looked
back into the room.
'Yes,'
he resumed,
'there is one thing I believe in.
My
wife has committed a breach of confidence — I believe Agnes will marry
you. Good night, Henry. We leave Venice the first thing to-morrow morning.'
So Lord Montbarry disposed of the mystery of The Haunted Hotel.