The Law and the Lady

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"I seem to have surprised you?" I said.

He started at the sound of my voice.

"I beg ten thousand pardons!" he exclaimed. "You have not only
surprised me--you have opened an entirely new view to my mind. I
see a possibility, a really startling possibility, in connection
with the poisoning at Gleninch, which never occurred to me until
the present moment. This is a nice state of things," he added,
falling back again into his ordinary humor. "Here is the client
leading the lawyer. My dear Mrs. Eustace, which is it--do you
want my advice? or do I want yours?"

"May I hear the new idea?" I asked.

"Not just yet, if you will excuse me," he answered. "Make
allowances for my professional caution. I don't want to be
professional with you--my great anxiety is to avoid it. But the
lawyer gets the better of the man, and refuses to be suppressed.
I really hesitate to realize what is passing in my own mind
without some further inquiry. Do me a great favor. Let us go over
a part of the ground again, and let me ask you some questions as
we proceed. Do you feel any objection to obliging me in this
matter?"

"Certainly not, Mr. Playmore. How far shall we go back?"

"To your visit to Dexter with your mother-in-law. When you first
asked him if he had any ideas of his own on the subject of Mrs.
Eustace Macallan's death, did I understand you to say that he
looked at you suspiciously?"

"Very suspiciously."

"And his face cleared up again when you told him that your
question was only suggested by what you had read in the Report of
the Trial?"

"Yes."

He drew a slip of paper out of the drawer in his desk, dipped his
pen in the ink, considered a little, and placed a chair for me
close at his side.

"The lawyer disappears," he said, "and the man resumes his proper
place. There shall be no professional mysteries between you and
me. As your husband's old friend, Mrs. Eustace, I feel no common
interest in you. I see a serious necessity for warning you before
it is too late; and I can only do so to any good purpose by
running a risk on which few men in my place would venture.
Personally and professionally, I am going to trust you--though I
_am_ a Scotchman and a lawyer. Sit here, and look over my
shoulder while I make my notes. You will see what is passing in
my mind
if you see what I write."

I sat down by him, and looked over his shoulder, without the
smallest pretense of hesitation.

He began to write as follows:

"The poisoning at Gleninch. Queries: In what position does
Miserrimus Dexter stand toward the poisoning? And what does he
(presumably) know about that matter?

"He has ideas which are secrets. He suspects that he has betrayed
them, or that they have been discovered in some way inconceivable
to himself. He is palpably relieved when he finds that this is
not the case."

The pen stopped; and the questions went on.

"Let us advance to your second visit," said Mr. Playmore, "when
you saw Dexter alone. Tell me again what he did, and how he
looked when you informed him that you were not satisfied with the
Scotch Verdict."

I repeated what I have already written in these pages. The pen
went back to the paper again, and added these lines:

"He hears nothing more remarkable than that a person visiting
him, who is interested in the case, refuses to accept the verdict
at the Macallan Trial as a final verdict, and proposes to reopen
the inquiry. What does he do upon that?

"He exhibits all the symptoms of a panic of terror; he sees
himself in some incomprehensible danger; he is frantic at one
moment and servile at the next; he must and will know what this
disturbing person really means. And when he is informed on that
point, he first turns pale and doubts the evidence of his own
senses; and next, with nothing said to justify it, gratuitously
accuses his visitor of suspecting somebody. Query here: When a
small sum of money is missing in a household, and the servants in
general are called together to be informed of the circumstance,
what do we think of the one servant in particular who speaks
first, and who says, 'Do you suspect _me?_'"

He laid down the pen again. "Is that right?" he asked.

I began to see the end to which the notes were drifting. Instead
of answering his question, I entreated him to enter into the
explanations that were still wanting to convince my own mind. He
held up a warning forefinger, and stopped me.

"Not yet," he said. "Once again, am I right--so far?"

"Quite right."

"Very well. Now tell me what happened next. Don't mind repeating
yourself. Give me all the details, one after another, to the
end."

I mentioned all the details exactly as I remembered them. Mr.
Playmore returned to his writing for the third and last time.
Thus the notes ended:

"He is indirectly assured that he at least is not the person
suspected. He sinks back in his chair; he draws a long breath; he
asks to be left a while by himself, under the pretense that the
subject excites him. When the visitor returns, Dexter has been
drinking in the interval. The visitor resumes the subject--not
Dexter. The visitor is convinced that Mrs. Eustace Macallan died
by the hand of a poisoner, and openly says so. Dexter sinks back
in his chair like a man fainting. What is the horror that has got
possession of him? It is easy to understand if we call it guilty
horror; it is beyond all understanding if we call it anything
else. And how does it leave him? He flies from one extreme, to
another; he is indescribably delighted when he discovers that the
visitor's suspicions are all fixed on an absent person. And then,
and then only, he takes refuge in the declaration that he has
been of one mind with his visitor, in the matter of suspicion,
from the first. These are facts. To what plain conclusion do they
point?"

He shut up his notes, and, steadily watching my face, waited for
me to speak first.

"I understand you, Mr. Playmore," I beg impetuously. "You believe
that Mr. Dexter--"

His warning forefinger stopped me there.

Tell me, "he interposed, "what Dexter said to you when he was so
good as to confirm your opinion of poor Mrs. Beauly."

"He said, 'There isn't a doubt about it. Mrs. Beauly poisoned
her.'"

"I can't do better than follow so good an example--with one
trifling difference. I say too, There isn't a doubt about it.
Dexter poisoned her.

"Are you joking, Mr. Playmore?"

"I never was more in earnest in my life. Your rash visit to
Dexter, and your extraordinary imprudence in taking him into your
confidence have led to astonishing results. The light which the
whole machinery of the Law was unable to throw on the poisoning
case at Gleninch has been accidentally let in on it by a Lady who
refuses to listen to reason and who insists on having her own
way. Quite incredible, and nevertheless quite true."

"Impossible!" I exclaimed.

"What is impossible?" he asked, coolly

"That Dexter poisoned my husband's first wife."

"And why is that impossible, if you please?" I began to be almost
enraged with Mr. Playmore.

"Can you ask the question?" I replied, indignantly. "I have told
you that I heard him speak of her in terms of respect and
affection of which any woman might be proud. He lives in the
memory of her. I owe his friendly reception of me to some
resemblance which he fancies he sees between my figure and hers.
I have seen tears in his eyes, I have heard his voice falter and
fail him, when he spoke of her. He may be the falsest of men in
all besides, but he is true to _her_--he has not misled me in
that one thing. There are signs that never deceive a woman when a
man is talking to her of what is really near his heart: I saw
those signs. It is as true that I poisoned her as that he did. I
am ashamed to set my opinion against yours, Mr. Playmore; but I
really cannot help it. I declare I am almost angry with you."

He seemed to be pleased, instead of offended by the bold manner
in which I expressed myself.

"My dear Mrs. Eustace, you have no reason to be angry with me. In
one respect, I entirely share your view--with this difference,
that I go a little further than you do."

"I don't understand you."

"You will understand me directly. You describe Dexter's feeling
for the late Mrs. Eustace as a happy mixture of respect and
affection. I can tell you it was a much warmer feeling toward her
than that. I have my information from the poor lady herself--who
honored me with her confidence and friendship for the best part
of her life. Before she married Mr. Macallan--she kept it a
secret from him, and you had better keep it a secret
too--Miserrimus Dexter was in love with her. Miserrimus Dexter
asked her--deformed as he was, seriously asked her--to be his
wife."

"And in the face of that," I cried, "you say that he poisoned
her!"

"I do. I see no other conclusion possible, after what happened
during your visit to him. You all but frightened him into a
fainting fit. What was he afraid of?"

I tried hard to find an answer to that. I even embarked on an
answer without quite knowing where my own words might lead me.

Mr. Dexter is an old and true friend of my husband, I began.
"When he heard me say I was not satisfied with the Verdict, he
might have felt alarmed--"

"He might have felt alarmed at the possible consequences to your
husband of reopening the inquiry," said Mr. Playmore, ironically
finishing the sentence for me. "Rather far-fetched, Mrs. Eustace;
and not very consistent with your faith in your husband's
innocence. Clear your mind of one mistake," he continued,
seriously, "which may fatally mislead you if you persist in
pursuing your present course. Miserrimus Dexter, you may take my
word for it, ceased to be your husband's friend on the day when
your husband married his first wife. Dexter has kept up
appearances, I grant you, both in public and in private. His
evidence in his friend's favor at the Trial was given with the
deep feeling which everybody expected from him. Nevertheless, I
firmly believe, looking under the surface, that Mr. Macallan has
no bitterer enemy living than Miserrimus Dexter."

He turned me cold. I felt that here, at least, he was right. My
husband had wooed and won the woman who had refused Dexter's
offer of marriage. Was Dexter the man to forgive that? My own
experience answered me, and said, No. "Bear in mind what I have
told you," Mr. Playmore proceeded. "And now let us get on to your
own position in this matter, and to the interests that you have
at stake. Try to adopt my point of view for the moment ; and let
us inquire what chance we have of making any further advance
toward a discovery of the truth. It is one thing to be morally
convinced (as I am) that Miserrimus Dexter is the man who ought
to have been tried for the murder at Gleninch; and it is another
thing, at this distance of time, to lay our hands on the plain
evidence which can alone justify anything like a public assertion
of his guilt. There, as I see it, is the insuperable difficulty
in the case. Unless I am completely mistaken, the question is now
narrowed to this plain issue: The public assertion of your
husband's innocence depends entirely on the public assertion of
Dexter's guilt. How are you to arrive at that result? There is
not a particle of evidence against him. You can only convict
Dexter on Dexter's own confession. Are you listening to me?"

I was listening, most unwillingly. If he were right, things had
indeed come to that terrible pass. But I could not--with all my
respect for his superior knowledge and experience--I could not
persuade myself that he _was_ right. And I owned it, with the
humility which I really felt.

He smiled good-humoredly.

"At any rate," he said, "you will admit that Dexter has not
freely opened his mind to you thus far? He is still keeping
something from your knowledge which you are interested in
discovering?"

"Yes. I admit that."

"Very good. What applies to your view of the case applies to
mine. I say, he is keeping from you the confession of his guilt.
You say, he is keeping from you information which may fasten the
guilt on some other person. Let us start from that point.
Confession, or information, how are you to get at what he is now
withholding from you? What influence can you bring to bear on him
when you see him again?"

"Surely I might persuade him?"

"Certainly. And if persuasion fail--what then? Do you think you
can entrap him into speaking out? or terrify him into speaking
out?"

"If you will look at your notes, Mr. Playmore, you will see that
I have already succeeded in terrifying him--though I am only a
woman and though I didn't mean to do it."

"Very well answered. You mark the trick. What you have done once
you think you can do again. Well, as you are determined to try
the experiment, it can do you no harm to know a little more of
Dexter's character and temperament than you know now. Suppose we
apply for information to somebody who can help us?"

I started, and looked round the room. He made me do it--he spoke
as if the person who was to help us was close at our elbows.

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "The oracle is silent; and the
oracle is here."

He unlocked one of the drawers of his desk; produced a bundle of
letters, and picked out one.

"When we were arranging your husband's defense," he said, "we
felt some difficulty about including Miserrimus Dexter among our
witnesses. We had not the slightest suspicion of him, I need
hardly tell you. But we were all afraid of his eccentricity; and
some among us even feared that the excitement of appearing at the
Trial might drive him completely out of his mind. In this
emergency we applied to a doctor to help us. Under some pretext,
which I forget now, we introduced him to Dexter. And in due
course of time we received his report. Here it is."

He opened the letter, and marking a certain passage in it with a
pencil, handed it to me.

"Read the lines which I have marked," he said; "they will be
quite sufficient for our purpose."

I read these words:

"Summing up the results of my observation, I may give it as my
opinion that there is undoubtedly latent insanity in this case,
but that no active symptoms of madness have presented themselves
as yet. You may, I think, produce him at the Trial, without fear
of consequences. He may say and do all sorts of odd things; but
he has his mind under the control of his will, and you may trust
his self-esteem to exhibit him in the character of a
substantially intelligent witness.

"As to the future, I am, of course, not able to speak positively.
I can only state my views.

"That he will end in madness (if he live), I entertain little or
no doubt. The question of _when_ the madness will show itself
depends entirely on the state of his health. His nervous system
is highly sensitive, and there are signs that his way of life has
already damaged it. If he conquer the bad habits to which I have
alluded in an earlier part of my report, and if he pass many
hours of every day quietly in the open air, he may last as a sane
man for years to come. If he persist in his present way of
life--or, in other words, if further mischief occur to that
sensitive nervous system--his lapse into insanity must infallibly
take place when the mischief has reached its culminating point.
Without warning to himself or to others, the whole mental
structure will give way; and, at a moment's notice, while he is
acting as quietly or speaking as intelligently as at his best
time, the man will drop (if I may use the expression) into
madness or idiocy. In either case, when the catastrophe has
happened, it is only due to his friends to add that they can (as
I believe) entertain no hope of his cure. The balance once lost,
will be lost for life."

There it ended. Mr. Playmore put the letter back in his drawer.

"You have just read the opinion of one of our highest living
authorities," he said. "Does Dexter strike you as a likely man to
give his nervous system a chance of recovery? Do you see no
obstacles and no perils in your way?"

My silence answered him.

"Suppose you go back to Dexter," he proceeded. "And suppose that
the doctor's opinion exaggerates the peril in his case. What are
you to do? The last time you saw him, you had the immense
advantage of taking him by surprise. Those sensitive nerves of
his gave way, and he betrayed the fear that you aroused in him.
Can you take him by surprise again? Not you! He is prepared for
you now; and he will be on his guard. If you encounter nothing
worse, you will have his cunning to deal with next. Are you his
match at that? But for Lady Clarinda he would have hopelessly
misled you on the subject of Mrs. Beauly."

There was no answering this, either. I was foolish enough to try
to answer it, for all that.

"He told me the truth so far as he knew it," I rejoined. "He
really saw what he said he saw in the corridor at Gleninch."

"He told you the truth," returned Mr. Playmore, "because he was
cunning enough to see that the truth would help him in irritating
your suspicions. You don't really believe that he shared your
suspicions?"

"Why not?" I said. "He was as ignorant of what Mrs. Beauly was
really doing on that night as I was--until I met Lady Clarinda.
It remains to be seen whether he will not be as much astonished
as I was when I tell him what Lady Clarinda told me."

This smart reply produced an effect which I had not anticipated.

To my surprise, Mr. Playmore abruptly dropped all further
discussion on his side. He appeared to despair of convincing me,
and he owned it indirectly in his next words.

"Will nothing that I can say to you," he asked, "induce you to
think as I think in this matter?"

"I have not your ability or your experience, "I answered. "I am
sorry to say I can't think as you think."

"And you are really determined to see Miserrimus Dexter again?"

"I have engaged myself to see him again."

He waited a little, and thought over it.

"You have honored me by asking for my advice," he said. "I
earnestly advise you, Mrs. Eustace, to break your engagement. I
go even further than that--I _entreat_ you not to see Dexter
again."

Just what my mother-in-law had said! just what Benjamin and Major
Fitz-David had said! They were all against me. And still I held
out.

I wonder, when I look back at it, at my own obstinacy. I am
almost ashamed to relate that I made Mr. Playmore no reply. He
waited, still looking at me. I felt irritated by that fixed look.
I arose, and stood before him with my eyes on the floor.

He arose in his turn. He understood that the conference was over.

"Well, well," he said, with a kind of sad good-humor, "I suppose
it is unreasonable of me to expect that a young woman like you
should share any opinion with an o ld lawyer like me. Let me only
remind you that our conversation must remain strictly
confidential for the present; and then let us change the subject.
Is there anything that I can do for you? Are you alone in
Edinburgh?"

"No. I am traveling with an old friend of mine, who has known me
from childhood."

"And do you stay here to-morrow?"

"I think so."

"Will you do me one favor? Will you think over what has passed
between us, and will you come back to me in the morning?"

"Willingly, Mr. Playmore, if it is only to thank you again for
your kindness."

On that understanding we parted. He sighed--the cheerful man
sighed, as he opened the door for me. Women are contradictory
creatures. That sigh affected me more than all his arguments. I
felt myself blush for my own head-strong resistance to him as I
took my leave and turned away into the street.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

GLENINCH.

"AHA!" said Benjamin, complacently. "So the lawyer thinks, as I
do, that you will be highly imprudent if you go back to Mr.
Dexter? A hard-headed, sensible man the lawyer, no doubt. You
will listen to Mr. Playmore, won't you, though you wouldn't
listen to me?"

(I had of course respected Mr. Playmore's confidence in me when
Benjamin and I met on my return to the hotel. Not a word relating
to the lawyer's horrible suspicion of Miserrimus Dexter had
passed my lips.)

"You must forgive me, my old friend," I said, answering Benjamin.
"I am afraid it has come to this--try as I may, I can listen to
nobody who advises me. On our way here I honestly meant to be
guided by Mr. Playmore--we should never have taken this long
journey if I had not honestly meant it. I have tried, tried hard
to be a teachable, reasonable woman. But there is something in me
that won't be taught. I am afraid I shall go back to Dexter."

Even Benjamin lost all patience with me this time.

"What is bred in the bone," he said, quoting the old proverb,
"will never come out of the flesh. In years gone by, you were the
most obstinate child that ever made a mess in a nursery. Oh, dear
me, we might as well have stayed in London."

"No," I replied, "now we have traveled to Edinburgh, we will see
something (interesting to _me_ at any rate) which we should never
have seen if we had not left London. My husband's country-house
is within a few miles of us here. To-morrow--we will go to
Gleninch."

"Where the poor lady was poisoned?" asked Benjamin, with a look
of dismay. "You mean that place?"

"Yes. I want to see the room in which she died; I want to go all
over the house."

Benjamin crossed his hands resignedly on his lap. "I try to
understand the new generation," said the old man, sadly; "but I
can't manage it. The new generation beats me."

I sat down to write to Mr. Playmore about the visit to Gleninch.
The house in which the tragedy had occurred that had blighted my
husband's life was, to my mind, the most interesting house on the
habitable globe. The prospect of visiting Gleninch had, indeed
(to tell the truth), strongly influenced my resolution to consult
the Edinburgh lawyer. I sent my note to Mr. Playmore by a
messenger, and received the kindest reply in return. If I would
wait until the afternoon, he would get the day's business done,
and would take us to Gleninch in his own carriage.

Benjamin's obstinacy--in its own quiet way, and on certain
occasions only--was quite a match for mine. He had privately
determined, as one of the old generation, to have nothing to do
with Gleninch. Not a word on the subject escaped him until Mr.
Playmore's carriage was at the hotel door. At that appropriate
moment Benjamin remembered an old friend of his in Edinburgh.
"Will you please to excuse me, Valeria? My friend's name is
Saunders; and he will take it unkindly of me if I don't dine with
him to-day."

Apart from the associations that I connected with it, there was
nothing to interest a traveler at Gleninch.

The country around was pretty and well cultivated, and nothing
more. The park was, to an English eye, wild and badly kept. The
house had been built within the last seventy or eighty years.
Outside, it was as bare of all ornament as a factory, and as
gloomily heavy in effect as a prison. Inside, the deadly
dreariness, the close, oppressive solitude of a deserted dwelling
wearied the eye and weighed on the mind, from the roof to the
basement. The house had been shut up since the time of the Trial.
A lonely old couple, man and wife, had the keys and the charge of
it. The man shook his head in silent and sorrowful disapproval of
our intrusion when Mr. Playmore ordered him to open the doors and
shutters, and let the light in on the dark, deserted place. Fires
were burning in the library and the picture-gallery, to preserve
the treasures which they contained from the damp. It was not
easy, at first, to look at the cheerful blaze without fancying
that the inhabitants of the house must surely come in and warm
themselves. Ascending to the upper floor, I saw the rooms made
familiar to me by the Report of the Trial. I entered the little
study, with the old books on the shelves, and the key still
missing from the locked door of communication with the
bedchamber. I looked into the room in which the unhappy mistress
of Gleninch had suffered and died. The bed was left in its place;
the sofa on which the nurse had snatched her intervals of repose
was at its foot; the Indian cabinet, in which the crumpled paper
with the grains of arsenic had been found, still held its little
collection of curiosities. I moved on its pivot the invalid-table
on which she had taken her meals and written her poems, poor
soul. The place was dreary and dreadful; the heavy air felt as if
it were still burdened with its horrid load of misery and
distrust. I was glad to get out (after a passing glance at the
room which Eustace had occupied in those days) into the Guests'
Corridor. There was the bedroom, at the door of which Miserrimus
Dexter had waited and watched. There was the oaken floor along
which he had hopped, in his horrible way, following the footsteps
of the servant disguised in her mistress's clothes. Go where I
might, the ghosts of the dead and the absent were with me, step
by step. Go where I might, the lonely horror of the house had its
still and awful voice for Me: "_I_ keep the secret of the Poison!
_I_ hide the mystery of the death!"

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