The Evil Genius. Wilkie Collins

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СКАЧАТЬ undeniable claims on her mercy. Notice of the marriage had been received at the church; and a cabin had been secured for her on board the steamer.

      Her prospects being thus settled, to her own satisfaction, Mrs. Westerfield was at liberty to make her arrangements for the desertion of poor little Syd.

      The person on whose assistance she could rely was an unmarried elder sister, distinguished as proprietor of a cheap girls’ school in one of the suburbs of London. This lady—known to local fame as Miss Wigger—had already proposed to take Syd into training as a pupil teacher. “I’ll force the child on,” Miss Wigger promised, “till she can earn her board and lodging by taking my lowest class. When she gets older she will replace my regular governess, and I shall save the salary.”

      With this proposal waiting for a reply, Mrs. Westerfield had only to inform her sister that it was accepted. “Come here,” she wrote, “on Friday next, at any time before two o’clock, and Syd shall be ready for you. P.S.—I am to be married again on Thursday, and start for America with my husband and my boy by next Saturday’s steamer.”

      The letter was posted; and the mother’s anxious mind was, to use her own phrase, relieved of another worry.

      As the hour of eight drew near on Wednesday evening, Mrs. Westerfield’s anxiety forced her to find relief in action of some kind. She opened the door of her sitting-room and listened on the stairs. It still wanted for a few minutes to eight o’clock, when there was a ring at the house-bell. She ran down to open the door. The servant happened to be in the hall, and answered the bell. The next moment, the door was suddenly closed again.

      “Anybody there?” Mrs. Westerfield asked.

      “No, ma’am.”

      This seemed strange. Had the old wretch deceived her, after all? “Look in the letter-box,” she called out. The servant obeyed, and found a letter. Mrs. Westerfield tore it open, standing on the stairs. It contained half a sheet of common note-paper. The interpretation of the cipher was written on it in these words:

      “Remember Number 12, Purbeck Road, St. John’s Wood. Go to the summer-house in the back garden. Count to the fourth plank in the floor, reckoning from the side wall on the right as you enter the summer-house. Prize up the plank. Look under the mould and rubbish. Find the diamonds.”

      Not a word of explanation accompanied these lines. Neither had the original cipher been returned. The strange old man had earned his money, and had not attended to receive it—had not even sent word where or how it might be paid! Had he delivered his letter himself? He (or his messenger) had gone before the house-door could be opened!

      A sudden suspicion of him turned her cold. Had he stolen the diamonds? She was on the point of sending for a cab, and driving it to his lodgings, when James came in, eager to know if the interpretation had arrived.

      Keeping her suspicions to herself, she merely informed him that the interpretation was in her hands. He at once asked to see it. She refused to show it to him until he had made her his wife. “Put a chisel in your pocket, when we go to church, to-morrow morning,” was the one hint she gave him. As thoroughly worthy of each other as ever, the betrothed lovers distrusted each other to the last.

      At eleven o’clock the next morning they were united in the bonds of wedlock; the landlord and the landlady of the public-house in which they had both served being the only witnesses present. The children were not permitted to see the ceremony. On leaving the church door, the married pair began their honeymoon by driving to St. John’s Wood.

      A dirty printed notice, in a broken window, announced that the House was To Let; and a sour-tempered woman informed them that they were free to look at the rooms.

      The bride was in the best of humors. She set the bridegroom the example of keeping up appearances by examining the dilapidated house first. This done, she said sweetly to the person in charge, “May we look at the garden?”

      The woman made a strange answer to this request. “That’s curious,” she said.

      James interfered for the first time. “What’s curious?” he asked roughly.

      “Among all the idle people who have come here, at one time or another, to see this house,” the woman said, “only two have wanted to look at the garden.”

      James turned on his heel, and made for the summer-house, leaving it to his wife to pursue the subject or not as she pleased. She did pursue the subject.

      “I am one of the persons, of course,” she said. “Who is the other?”

      “An old man came on Monday.”

      The bride’s pleasant smile vanished.

      “What sort of person was he?” she asked.

      The sour-tempered woman became sourer than ever.

      “Oh, how can I tell! A brute. There!”

      “A brute!” The very words which the new Mrs. Bellbridge had herself used when the Expert had irritated her. With serious misgivings, she, too, turned her steps in the direction of the garden.

      James had already followed her instructions and used his chisel. The plank lay loose on the floor. With both his big hands he rapidly cleared away the mould and the rubbish. In a few minutes the hiding-place was laid bare.

      They looked into it. They looked at each other. There was the empty hole, telling its own story. The diamonds were gone.

      9.—The Mother.

      Mrs. Bellbridge eyed her husband, prepared for a furious outbreak of rage. He stood silent, staring stupidly straight before him. The shock that had fallen on his dull brain had stunned it. For the time, he was a big idiot—speechless, harmless, helpless.

      She put back the rubbish, and replaced the plank, and picked up the chisel. “Come, James,” she said; “pull yourself together.” It was useless to speak to him. She took his arm and led him out to the cab that was waiting at the door.

      The driver, helping him to get in, noticed a piece of paper lying on the front seat. Advertisements, seeking publicity under all possible circumstances, are occasionally sent flying into the open windows of vehicles. The driver was about to throw the paper away, when Mrs. Bellbridge (seeing it on the other side) took it out of his hand. “It isn’t print,” she said; “it’s writing.” A closer examination showed that the writing was addressed to herself. Her correspondent must have followed her to the church, as well as to the house in St. John’s Wood. He distinguished her by the name which she had changed that morning, under the sanction of the clergy and the law.

      This was what she read: “Don’t trouble yourself, madam, about the diamonds. You have made a mistake—you have employed the wrong man.”

      Those words—and no more. Enough, surely, to justify the conclusion that he had stolen the diamonds. Was it worth while to drive to his lodgings? They tried the experiment. The Expert had gone away on business—nobody knew where.

      The newspaper came as usual on Friday morning. To Mrs. Bellbridge’s amazement it set the question of the theft at rest, on the highest authority. An article appeared, in a conspicuous position, thus expressed:

      “Another of the many proofs that truth is stranger than fiction has just occurred at Liverpool. A highly СКАЧАТЬ