The Law and the Lady

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"And a monkey looks best in a cage," rejoined Benjamin, enraged
at the satirical reference to his shortness of stature. "I was
waiting, sir, to see you get into your swing."

The retort produced no effect on Miserrimus Dexter: it appeared
to have passed by him unheard. He had changed again; he was
thoughtful, he was subdued; his eyes were fixed on me with a sad
and rapt attention. I took the nearest arm-chair, first casting a
glance at Benjamin, which he immediately understood. He placed
himself behind Dexter, at an angle which commanded a view of my
chair. Ariel, silently devouring her cakes, crouched on a stool
at "the Master's" feet, and looked up at him like a faithful dog.
There was an interval of quiet and repose. I was able to observe
Miserrimus Dexter uninterruptedly for the first time since I had
entered the room.

I was not surprised--I was nothing less than alarmed by the
change for the worse in him since we had last met. Mr. Playmore's
letter had not prepared me for the serious deterioration in him
which I could now discern.

His features were pinched and worn; the whole face seemed to have
wasted strangely in substance and size since I had last seen it.
The softness in his eyes was gone. Blood-red veins were
intertwined all over them now: they were set in a piteous and
vacant stare. His once firm hands looked withered; they trembled
as they lay on the coverlet. The paleness of his face
(exaggerated, perhaps, by the black velvet jacket that he wore)
had a sodden and sickly look--the fine outline was gone. The
multitudinous little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had
deepened. His head sank into his shoulders when he leaned forward
in his chair. Years appeared to have passed over him, instead of
months, while I had been absent from England. Remembering the
medical report which Mr. Playmore had given me to read--recalling
the doctor's positively declared opinion that the preservation of
Dexter's sanity depended on the healthy condition of his
nerves--I could not but feel that I had done wisely (if I might
still hope for success) in hastening my return from Spain.
Knowing what I knew, fearing what I feared, I believed that his
time was near. I felt, when our eyes met by accident, that I was
looking at a doomed man.

I pitied him.

Yes, yes! I know that compassion for him was utterly inconsistent
with the motive which had taken me to his house--utterly
inconsistent with the doubt, still present to my mind, whether
Mr. Playmore had really wronged him in believing that his was the
guilt which had compassed the first Mrs. Eustace's death. I felt
this: I knew him to be cruel; I believed him to be false. And yet
I pitied him! Is there a common fund of wickedness in us all? Is
the suppression or the development of that wickedness a mere
question of training and temptation? And is there something in
our deeper sympathies which mutely acknowledges this when we feel
for the wicked; when we crowd to a criminal trial; when we shake
hands at parting (if we happen to be present officially) with the
vilest monster that ever swung on a gallows? It is not for me to
decide. I can only say that I pitied Miserrimus Dexter--and that
he found it out.

"Thank you," he said, suddenly. "You see I am ill, and you feel
for me. Dear and good Valeria!"

"This lady's name, sir, is Mrs. Eustace Macallan," interposed
Benjamin, speaking sternly behind him. "The next time you address
her, remember, if you please, that you have no business with her
Christian name."

Benjamin's rebuke passed, like Benjamin's retort, unheeded and
unheard. To all appearance, Miserrimus Dexter had completely
forgotten that there was such a person in the room.

"You have delighted me with the sight of you," he went on. "Add
to the pleasure by letting me hear your voice. Talk to me of
yourself. Tell me what you have been doing since you left
England."

It was necessary to my object to set the conversation afloat; and
this was as good a way of doing it as any other. I told him
plainly how I had been employed during my absence.

"So you are still fond of Eustace?" he said, bitterly.

"I love him more dearly than ever."

He lifted his hands, and hid his face. After waiting a while, he
went on, speaking in an odd, muffled manner, still under cover of
his hands.

"And you leave Eustace in Spain," he said; "and you return to
England by yourself! What made you do that?"

"What made me first come here and ask you to help me, Mr.
Dexter?"

He dropped his hands, and looked at me. I saw in his eyes, not
amazement only, but alarm.

"Is it possible," he exclaimed, "that you won't let that
miserable matter rest even yet? Are you still determined to
penetrate the mystery at Gleninch?"

"I am still determined, Mr. Dexter; and I still hope that you may
be able to help me."

The old distrust that I remembered so well darkened again over
his face the moment I said those words.

"How can I help you?" he asked. "Can I alter facts?" He stopped.
His face brightened again, as if some sudden sense of relief had
come to him. "I did try to help you," he went on. "I told you
that Mrs. Beauly's absence was a device to screen herself from
suspicion; I told you that the poison might have been given by
Mrs. Beauly's maid. Has reflection convinced you? Do you see
something in the idea?"

This return to Mrs. Beauly gave me my first chance of leading the
talk to the right topic.

"I see nothing in the idea," I answered. "I see no motive. Had
the maid any reason to be an enemy to the late Mrs. Eustace?"

"Nobody had any reason to be an enemy to the late Mrs. Eustace!"
he broke out, loudly and vehemently. "She was all goodness, all
kindness; she never injured any human creature in thought or
deed. She was a saint upon earth. Respect her memory! Let the
martyr rest in her grave!" He covered his face again with his
hands, and shook and shuddered under the paroxysm of emotion that
I had roused in him.

Ariel suddenly and softly left her stool, and approached me.

"Do you see my ten claws?" she whispered, holding out her hands.
"Vex the Master again, and you will feel my ten claws on your
throat!"

Benjamin rose from his seat: he had seen the action, without
hearing the words. I signed to him to keep his place.
Ariel returned to her stool, and looked up again at her master.

"Don't cry," she said. "Come on. Here are the strings. Tease me
again. Make me screech with the smart of it."

He never answered, and never moved.

Ariel bent her slow mind to meet the difficulty of attracting his
attention. I saw it in her frowning brows, in her colorless eyes
looking at me vacantly. On a sudden, she joyfully struck the open
palm of one of her hands with the fist of the other. She had
triumphed. She had got an idea.

"Master!" she cried. "Master! You haven't told me a story for
ever so long. Puzzle my thick head. Make my flesh creep. Come on.
A good long story. All blood and crimes."

Had she accidentally hit on the right suggestion to strike his
wayward fancy? I knew his high opinion of his own skill in
"dramatic narrative." I knew that one of his favorite amusements
was to puzzle Ariel by telling her stories that she could not
understand. Would he wander away into the regions of wild
romance? Or would he remember that my obstinacy still threatened
him with reopening the inquiry into the tragedy at Gleninch? and
would he set his cunning at work to mislead me by some new
stratagem? This latter course was the course which my past
experience of him suggested that he would take. But, to my
surprise and alarm, I found my past experience at fault. Ariel
succeeded in diverting his mind from the subject which had been
in full possession of it the moment before she spoke! He showed
his face again. It was overspread by a broad smile of gratified
self-esteem. He was weak enough now to let even Ariel find her
way to his vanity. I saw it with a sense of misgiving, with a
doubt whether I had not delayed my visit until too late, which
turned me cold from head to foot.

Miserrimus Dexter spoke--to Ariel, not to me.

"Poor devil!" he said, patting her head complacently. "You don't
understand a word of my stories, do you? And yet I can make the
flesh creep on your great clumsy body--and yet I can hold your
muddled mind, and make you like it. Poor devil!" He leaned back
serenely in his chair, and looked my way again. Would the sight
of me remind him of the words that had passed between us not a
minute since? No! There was the pleasantly tickled self-conceit
smiling at me exactly as it had smiled at Ariel. "I excel in
dramatic narrative, Mrs. Valeria," he said. "And this creature
here on the stool is a remarkable proof of it. She is quite a
psychological study when I tell her one of my stories. It is
really amusing to see the half-witted wretch's desperate efforts
to understand me. You shall have a specimen. I have been out of
spirits while you were away--I haven't told her a story for weeks
past; I will tell her one now. Don't suppose it's any effort to
me! My invention is inexhaustible. You are sure to be amused--you
are naturally serious--but you are sure to be amused. I am
naturally serious too; and I always laugh at her."

Ariel clapped her great shapeless hands. "He always laughs at
me!" she said, with a proud look of superiority directed straight
at me.

I was at a loss, seriously at a loss, what to do.

The outbreak which I had provoked in leading him to speak of the
late Mrs. Eustace warned me to be careful, and to wait for my
opportunity before I reverted to _that_ subject. How else could I
turn the conversation so as to lead him, little by little, toward
the betrayal of the secrets which he was keeping from me? In this
uncertainty, one thing only seemed to be plain. To let him tell
his story would be simply to let him waste the precious minutes.
With a vivid remembrance of Ariel's "ten claws," I decided,
nevertheless on discouraging Dexter's new whim at every possible
opportunity and by every means in my power.

"Now, Mrs. Valeria," he began, loudly and loftily, "listen. Now,
Ariel, bring your brains to a focus. I improvise poetry; I
improvise fiction. We will begin with the good old formula of the
fairy stories. Once upon a time--"

I was waiting for my opportunity to interrupt him when he
interrupted himself. He stopped, with a bewildered look. He put
his hand to his head, and passed it backward and forward over his
forehead. He laughed feebly.

"I seem to want rousing," he said

Was his mind gone.? There had been no signs of it until I had
unhappily stirred his memory of the dead mistress of Gleninch.
Was the weakness which I had already noticed, was the
bewilderment which I now saw, attributable to the influence of a
passing disturbance only? In other words, had I witnessed nothing
more serious than a first warning to him and to us? Would he soon
recover himself, if we were patient, and gave him time? Even
Benjamin was interested at last; I saw him trying to look at
Dexter around the corner of the chair. Even Ariel was surprised
and uneasy. She had no dark glances to cast at me now.

We all waited to see what he would do, to hear what he would say,
next.

"My harp!" he cried. "Music will rouse me."

Ariel brought him his harp.

"Master," she said, wonderingly, "what's come to you?"

He waved his hand, commanding her to be silent.

"Ode to Invention," he announced, loftily, addressing himself to
me. "Poetry and music improvised by Dexter. Silence! Attention!"

His fingers wandered feebly over the harpstrings, awakening no
melody, suggesting no words. In a little while his hand dropped;
his head sank forward gently, and rested on the frame of the
harp. I started to my feet, and approached him. Was it a sleep?
or was it a swoon?

I touched his arm, and called to him by his name.

Ariel instantly stepped between us, with a threatening look at
me. At the same moment Miserrimus Dexter raised his head. My
voice had reached him. He looked at me with a curious
contemplative quietness in his eyes which I had never seen in
them before.

"Take away the harp," he said to Ariel, speaking in languid
tones, like a man who was very weary.

The mischievous, half-witted creature--in sheer stupidity or in
downright malice, I am not sure which--irritated him once more.

"Why, Master?" she asked, staring at him with the harp hugged in
her arms. "What's come to you? where is the story?"

"We don't want the story," I interposed. "I have many things to
say to Mr. Dexter which I have not said yet."

Ariel lifted her heavy hand. "You will have it!" she said, and
advanced toward me. At the same moment the Master's voice stopped
her.

"Put away the harp, you fool!" he repeated, sternly. "And wait
for the story until I choose to tell it."

She took the harp submissively back to its place at the end of
the room. Miserrimus Dexter moved his chair a little closer to
mine. "I know what will rouse me," he said, confidentially.
"Exercise will do it. I have had no exercise lately. Wait a
little, and you will see."

He put his hands on the machinery of the chair, and started on
his customary course down the room. Here again the ominous change
in him showed itself under a new form. The pace at which he
traveled was not the furious pace that I remembered; the chair no
longer rushed under him on rumbling and whistling wheels. It
went, but it went slowly. Up the room and down the room he
painfully urged it--and then he stopped for want of breath.

We followed him. Ariel was first, and Benjamin was by my side. He
motioned impatiently to both of them to stand back, and to let me
approach him alone.

"I'm out of practice," he said, faintly. "I hadn't the heart to
make the wheels roar and the floor tremble while you were away."

Who would not have pitied him? Who would have remembered his
misdeeds at that moment? Even Ariel felt it. I heard her
beginning to whine and whimper behind me. The magician who alone
could rouse the dormant sensibilities in her nature had awakened
them now by his neglect. Her fatal cry was heard again, in
mournful, moaning tones--

"What's come to you, Master? Where's the story?"

"Never mind her," I whispered to him. "You want the fresh air.
Send for the gardener. Let us take a drive in your pony-chaise."

It was useless. Ariel would be noticed. The mournful cry came
once more--

"Where's the story? where's the story?"

The sinking spirit leaped up in Dexter again.

"You wretch ! you fiend!" he cried, whirling his chair around,
and facing her. "The story is coming. I _can_ tell it! I _will_
tell it! Wine! You whimpering idiot, get me the wine. Why didn't
I think of it before? The kingly Burgundy! that's what I want,
Valeria, to set my invention alight and flaming in my head.
Glasses for everybody! Honor to the King of the Vintages--the
Royal Clos Vougeot!"

Ariel opened the cupboard in the alcove, and produced the wine
and the high Venetian glasses. Dexter drained his gobletful of
Burgundy at a draught; he forced us to drink (or at least to
pretend to drink) with him. Even Ariel had her share this time,
and emptied her glass in rivalry with her master. The powerful
wine mounted almost instantly to her weak head. She began to sing
hoarsely a song of her own devising, in imitation of Dexter. It
was nothing but the repetition, the endless mechanical
repetition, of her demand for the story--"Tell us the story.
Master! master! tell us the story!" Absorbed over his wine, the
Master silently filled his goblet for the second time. Benjamin
whispered to me while his eye was off us, "Take my advice,
Valeria, for once; let us go."

"One last effort," I whispered back. "Only one!"

Ariel went drowsily on with her song--

"Tell us the story. Master! master! tell us the story."

Miserrimus Dexter looked up from his glass. The generous
stimulant was beginning to do its work. I saw the color rising in
his face. I saw the bright intelligence flashing again in his
eyes. The Burgundy _had_ roused him! The good wine stood my
friend, and offered me a last chance!

"No story," I said. "I want to talk to you, Mr. Dexter. I am not
in the humor for a story."

"Not in the humor?" he repeated, with a gleam of the old impish
irony showing itself again in his face. "That's an excuse. I see
what it is! You think my invention is gone--and you are not frank
enough to confess it. I'll show you you're wrong. I'll show you
that Dexter is himself again. Silence, you Ariel, or you shall
leave the room! I have got it, Mrs. Valeria, all laid out here,
with scenes and characters complete." He touched his forehead,
and looked at me with a furtive and smiling cunning before he
added his next words. "It's the very thing to interest you, my
fair friend. It's the story of a Mistress and a Maid. Come back
to the fire and hear it."

The Story of a Mistress and a Maid? If that meant anything, it
meant the story of Mrs. Beauly and her maid, told in disguise.

The title, and the look which had escaped him when he announced
it, revived the hope that was well-nigh dead in me. He had
rallied at last. He was again in possession of his natural
foresight and his natural cunning. Under pretense of telling
Ariel her story, he was evidently about to make the attempt to
mislead me for the second time. The conclusion was irresistible.
To use his own words--Dexter was himself again.

I took Benjamin's arm as we followed him back to the fire-place
in the middle of the room.

"There is a chance for me yet," I whispered. "Don't forget the
signals."

We returned to the places which we had already occupied. Ariel
cast another threatening look at me. She had just sense enough
left, after emptying her goblet of wine, to be on the watch for a
new interruption on my part. I took care, of course, that nothing
of the sort should happen. I was now as eager as Ariel to hear
the story. The subject was full of snares for the narrator. At
any moment, in the excitement of speaking, Dexter's memory of the
true events might show itself reflected in the circumstances of
the fiction. At any moment he might betray himself.

He looked around him, and began.

"My public, are you seated? My public, are you ready?" he asked,
gayly. "Your face a little more this way," he added, in his
softest and tenderest tones, motioning to me to turn my full face
toward him. "Surely I am not asking too much? You look at the
meanest creature that crawls--look at Me. Let me find my
inspiration in your eyes. Let me feed my hungry admiration on
your form. Come, have one little pitying smile left for the man
whose happiness you have wrecked. Thank you, Light of my Life,
thank you!" He kissed his hand to me, and threw himself back
luxuriously in his chair. "The story," he resumed. "The story at
last! In what form shall I cast it? In the dramatic form--the
oldest way, the truest way, the shortest way of telling a story!
Title first. A short title, a taking title: 'Mistress and Maid.'
Scene, the land of romance--Italy. Time, the age of romance--the
fifteenth century. Ha! look at Ariel. She knows no more about the
fifteenth century than the cat in the kitchen, and yet she is
interested already. Happy Ariel!"

Ariel looked at me again, in the double intoxication of the wine
and the triumph.

"I know no more than the cat in the kitchen," she repeated, with
a broad grin of gratified vanity. "I am 'happy Ariel!' What are
you?"

Miserrimus Dexter laughed uproariously.

"Didn't I tell you?" he said. "Isn't she fun?--Persons of the
Drama." he resumed: "three in number. Women only. Angelica, a
noble lady; noble alike in spirit and in birth. Cunegonda, a
beautiful devil in woman's form. Damoride, her unfortunate maid.
First scene: a dark vaulted chamber in a castle. Time, evening.
The owls are hooting in the wood; the frogs are croaking in the
marsh.--Look at Ariel! Her flesh creeps; she shudders audibly.
Admirable Ariel!"

My rival in the Master's favor eyed me defiantly. "Admirable
Ariel!" she repeated, in drowsy accents. Miserrimus Dexter paused
to take up his goblet of Burgundy--placed close at hand on a
little sliding table attached to his chair. I watched him
narrowly as he sipped the wine. The flush was still mounting in
his face; the light was still brightening in his eyes. He set
down his glass again, with a jovial smack of his lips--and went
on:

"Persons present in the vaulted chamber: Cunegonda and Damoride.
Cunegonda speaks. 'Damoride!' 'Madam?' 'Who lies ill in the
chamber above us?' 'Madam, the noble lady Angelica.' (A pause.
Cunegonda speaks again.) 'Damoride!' ' Madam?' 'How does Angelica
like you?' 'Madam, the noble lady, sweet and good to all who
approach her, is sweet and good to me.' 'Have you attended on
her, Damoride?' 'Sometimes, madam, when the nurse was weary.'
'Has she taken her healing medicine from your hand ' 'Once or
twice, madam, when I happened to be by.' 'Damoride, take this key
and open the casket on the table there.' (Damoride obeys.) 'Do
you see a green vial in the casket?' 'I see it, madam.' 'Take it
out.' (Damoride obeys.) 'Do you see a liquid in the green vial?
can you guess what it is?' 'No, madam.' 'Shall I tell you?'
(Damoride bows respectfully ) 'Poison is in the vial.' (Damoride
starts; she shrinks from the poison; she would fain put it aside.
Her mistress signs to her to keep it in her hand; her mistress
speaks.) 'Damoride, I have told you one of my secrets; shall I
tell you another?' (Damoride waits, fearing what is to come. Her
mistress speaks.) 'I hate the Lady Angelica. Her life stands
between me and the joy of my heart. You hold her life in your
hand.' (Damoride drops on her knees; she is a devout person; she
crosses herself, and then she speaks.) 'Mistress, you terrify me.
Mistress, what do I hear?' (Cunegonda advances, stands over her,
looks down on her with terrible eyes, whispers the next words.)
'Damoride! the Lady Angelica must die--and I must not be
suspected. The Lady Angelica must die--and by your hand.'"

He paused again. To sip the wine once more? No; to drink a deep
draught of it this time.

Was the stimulant beginning to fail him already?

I looked at him attentively as he laid himself back again in his
chair to consider for a moment before he went on.

The flush on his face was as deep as ever; but the brightness in
his eyes was beginning to fade already. I had noticed that he
spoke more and more slowly as he advanced to the later dialogue
of the scene. Was he feeling the effort of invention already? Had
the time come when the wine had done all that the wine could do
for him?

We waited. Ariel sat watching him with vacantly staring eyes and
vacantly open mouth. Ben jamin, impenetrably expecting the
signal, kept his open note-book on his knee, covered by his hand.
Miserrimus Dexter went on:

"Damoride hears those terrible words; Damoride clasps her hands
in entreaty. 'Oh, madam! madam! how can I kill the dear and noble
lady? What motive have I for harming her?' Cunegonda answers,
'You have the motive of obeying Me.' (Damoride falls with her
face on the floor at her mistress's feet.) 'Madam, I cannot do
it! Madam, I dare not do it!' Cunegonda answers, 'You run no
risk: I have my plan for diverting discovery from myself, and my
plan for diverting discovery from you.' Damoride repeats, 'I
cannot do it! I dare not do it!' Cunegonda's eyes flash
lightnings of rage. She takes from its place of concealment in
her bosom--"

He stopped in the middle of the sentence, and put his hand to his
head--not like a man in pain, but like a man who had lost his
idea.

Would it be well if I tried to help him to recover his idea? or
would it be wiser (if I could only do it) to keep silence?

I could see the drift of his story plainly enough. His object,
under the thin disguise of the Italian romance, was to meet my
unanswerable objection to suspecting Mrs. Beauly's maid--the
objection that the woman had no motive for committing herself to
an act of murder. If he could practically contradict this, by
discovering a motive which I should be obliged to admit, his end
would be gained. Those inquiries which I had pledged myself to
pursue--those inquiries which might, at any moment, take a turn
that directly concerned him--would, in that case, be successfully
diverted from the right to the wrong person. The innocent maid
would set my strictest scrutiny at defiance; and Dexter would be
safely shielded behind her.

I determined to give him time. Not a word passed my lips.

The minutes followed each other. I waited in the deepest anxiety.
It was a trying and a critical moment. If he succeeded in
inventing a probable motive, and in shaping it neatly to suit the
purpose of his story, he would prove, by that act alone, that
there were reserves of mental power still left in him which the
practiced eye of the Scotch doctor had failed to see. But the
question was--would he do it?

He did it! Not in a new way; not in a convincing way; not without
a painfully evident effort. Still, well done or ill done, he
found a motive for the maid.

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