The Moon Rock by Arthur J. Rees (e novels to read TXT) 📗

voice in the darkness asked for Dr. Ravenshaw, and the owner of the voice stepped quickly inside at Thalassa’s invitation. The visitor peered at the tall figure in the unlighted passage. “Is it you, Thalassa?” he said hesitatingly, and Thalassa recognized the voice of Austin Turold. The voice went on: “Tell me—”

“In there.” Thalassa jerked his head towards the gleam falling through the partly open surgery door. “He wants you.” He walked ahead and pushed the door open. Austin Turold followed, but started back as he looked within. Then he entered, his eyes dwelling on the shadowy outline on the couch in the corner.

“What has happened at Flint House, Ravenshaw? Now—to-night, I mean.” He spoke shakily. “There’s a story abroad of Thalassa having been seen carrying a figure through the churchtown and entering your house. Has somebody fallen off the cliffs—been drowned? Is that it?” He stepped quickly across to the couch, and, looking down, as swiftly recoiled. “What does this mean?” he hoarsely cried.

Ravenshaw did not speak.

“Miss Sisily fell over the cliffs by the Moon Rock,” said Thalassa. “I went down for her, but it was too late. She was drowned.”

Austin’s look sought Ravenshaw’s, who nodded in confirmation.

“More horror—more misery,” whispered Austin. A shudder ran through him. “I do not understand,” he said simply. “Thalassa?”

“It’s not for me to explain,” said Thalassa quickly.

“You then, Ravenshaw.”

Ravenshaw spoke slowly.

“They have been looking for the man who killed Robert Turold—your brother. Well, I am he.”

“You!” gasped Austin, in a choking voice. “What do you mean? I do not understand you. My son has been arrested.”

“He has been arrested wrongly, then. It is I—I alone am responsible.”

Austin groped for his glasses like a man suddenly enveloped in darkness. His fingers closed on them and adjusted them on the bridge of his nose. Through them he surveyed the man before him with close attention.

“Ravenshaw,” he said gravely, “either you are mad or I am. Did not my sister call here to see you on the night my brother was killed, and did you not go with her to Flint House and break into my brother’s room? How, then, could you have killed Robert? Besides, I saw my son at Penzance to-day. He tells me he is innocent, and that the murderer is a man whom Robert and Thalassa robbed and wounded on a lonely island thirty years ago, and left there for dead, as they thought. What does it all mean?”

“These things can all be explained,” replied Ravenshaw. “It is a long story. Sit down, and I will tell it to you.”

“Not here—not here!” replied Austin unsteadily. His glance went to the corner of the room and the tranquil figure on the couch. He hid his face for a moment in his hands, then said: “Let us go to another room.”

Ravenshaw made a sad gesture of acquiescence. “Come,” he said quietly, lifting the lamp from the table. The other two followed him, and Thalassa closed the surgery door gently behind them. The doctor led them into a sitting-room opposite, where they seated themselves. After a moment’s silence Ravenshaw began to speak in low controlled tones which gave no indication of the state of his feelings.

“You know all about this island part of the story,” he said, inquiringly, “how your brother and Remington, seeking their fortune together, came to be there?”

Austin Turold nodded.

“I am Remington,” pursued the other. “I will take up the story from that point—it will save time.”

Again Austin Turold assented with a nod. There was neither anger nor resentment in his glance. The look which rested on the speaker was one of unmixed amazement.

Chapter XXXIV

“I will pass over as briefly as possible what happened after I was left behind in that horrible place. By the light of the moon I saw them go—from the ridge I saw them put out to sea. I watched them until the boat was a mere speck on the luminous waters, and finally vanished from sight. I was left alone, a desperately wounded man, on an arid sulphurous island, without food or water.

“When I was sure the boat had gone I returned to our camping place, and bound my wounds with strips torn off my shirt. Then I fell asleep. I must have developed fever in my slumber, for I have no clear recollections of the next few days. I vaguely recall roaming like a demented being among those solitudes in search of water, and finding a boiling spring. The water, when cooled, was drinkable. I suppose that saved my life. For food, there was shell-fish and mutton-bird eggs, with no lack of boiling water to cook them.

“I lived there so long that I forgot the flight of time. I became a wild man—a mere shaggy animal, living, eating, and sleeping like a beast.

“I was rescued by a passing steamer at last, rescued without any effort of my own, for I had gone past caring. From the ship they saw me leaping about the naked sides of the volcanic hills like a goat, and they put off a boat. Some lady passengers were badly scared when I was brought aboard—and no wonder. They were very kind to me on that ship. She was homeward bound, and brought me to England. I told the captain my story, but I could see that he didn’t believe me, so I told nobody else. Not that anybody wanted to know—really. One’s misfortunes are never interesting to other people.

“I had a little money left when I landed in England—not much, but sufficient to take me to my wife and support me until I found Robert Turold. I had left my wife living with her parents in a London suburb. Robert Turold and I had both been in love with her before we left England. She loved me, but he had some strange kind of influence over her—the dominance of a strong nature over a weak, I think. Or perhaps it was a more primitive feminine instinct. He was always the strong man—even then—ruthless, determined. It was strange that he should have loved such a gentle timid creature, though that, perhaps, was not so strange as a man like Robert Turold loving any woman. But love her he did.

“She had a great capacity for affection—she was one of those women who have to love, and be loved. Her guileless face, her appealing eyes, seemed to beseech the protection of a masculine shield in a world which has no mercy for the weak. She was born to be guided, to be led. It was my fear of her simple trustful disposition which led me to urge her to marry me secretly before I left England with Turold. Her parents did not favour me, and they wished their daughter to marry well—there was an aunt from whom she had expectations, and the aunt had a prospective husband in view for her. I feared their joint influence. She consented willingly enough; she was easy to persuade—on the eve of our parting. She clung to me weeping—her husband.

“I was to make enough money to return to England to claim her in a year or so—that was the plan. But I had been absent nearly three when I was left on the island. And another twelve months passed before I reached England again. Four years! A long time. Almost any combination of circumstances can be brought about in such a period. People die, marry, or can be forgotten as though they had never existed. It was my lot to be forgotten.

“I hastened to London, to my wife’s old home, and learnt that the family no longer lived there. Where had they gone to? The maid who opened the door could not tell me—she did not know. At my request she went for her mistress. The lady of the house came down to me, a tall slender woman, indifferent, but well-bred enough to be polite. She had taken the house from the Bruntons, she said. It was too large for them after their daughter’s marriage. It was dusk, and she could not see my face, but she heard my startled exclamation—‘Married? To whom?’ To a Mr. Turold—a very suitable match. They had been married for some months, and she was expecting a child.

“How she gathered that last piece of information I do not know. Perhaps she and Mrs. Brunton exchanged letters—women write to one another on the slightest pretexts. That thought made me cautious. Fortunately, I had not given my name. I thanked her, and rose to go. She offered to write down the Bruntons’ address for me (they had gone to live in the country), but I said I could remember it. And I got away from the house in the gathering darkness without her actually seeing my face—not that it would have mattered much, if she had.

“I thought it all over that night. I visualized readily enough what had happened. Robert Turold, returning to England with some concocted story of my death, had swept her off her feet, caught her on the rebound. He had returned a prosperous man, and doubtless his love-making was reinforced by Alice’s worldly parents and the match-making old aunt. The combination was a strong one, and I was supposed to be dead. So she married him, without breathing a word to anybody of her previous secret marriage to me. I realized that at once. She would be too afraid—left to herself. She would tell herself that it wasn’t worth while—that nobody need ever know now. I could imagine her twisting her little hands together in apprehension as she faced the problem—our secret—then gradually becoming calmer as something whispered in her ear that it was her secret now, and need not be told. You see, I knew her nature so well. There are many such natures—gentle souls who shrink from responsibility in a world which, sooner or later, generally sees to it that we are compelled to shoulder the burden of our own acts.

“I was not long in making up my mind. I determined to do nothing. I take no special credit to myself for that decision. The marriage with Robert Turold was an accomplished fact, and my belated reappearance upon the scene would have plunged her in unhappiness. She was about to become a mother, too. That weighed with me. I loved her far too well to injure her or her child. It meant letting Robert Turold go free if I remained dead, but there are other things in life besides money and revenge. Fortunately the position from the practical point of view was simplified by the death of my only relative, my uncle, during my absence from England, who had bequeathed his small property to me—not much, but sufficient for my own simple needs.

“I took my uncle’s name, the better to conceal my identity, and resumed the medical studies which had been interrupted by my departure from England four years before. When I received my degree I searched for a remote spot where I was not likely to encounter any one who had known me in my past life, and chose this lonely part of the Cornish coast. And here I have remained for thirty years.

“They have not been unhappy years. It was not my disposition to waste my life by hugging the illusions of the past. My days were occupied walking long distances to see my patients scattered at distant intervals on this desolate coast, and my nights I spent in antiquarian and archaeological studies, which were always a favourite pursuit of mine. It was a hobby which earned me some local repute in the course of the years, and was ultimately the means of bringing me face to face with Robert Turold again. That was the last thing in the world I desired to happen. In the early years I used to think of him wedded to my wife, and wonder whether he had succeeded in his great ambition. After a while the memory faded, as most memories do with the passing of the years.

“Then the meeting came—six months ago. I heard Flint House was let, though not to whom. The news did not interest me. But next evening, when I returned from my rounds, my servant met me at the door with the information that the new tenant of Flint House was in the consulting-room waiting to see me.

“I went in. The tall elderly figure sitting there rose at my entrance and said: ‘Not a patient, doctor—quite another matter.’ I started slightly at the familiar ring to that harsh authoritative voice, but I did not know who he was until he handed me his card. He had already commenced talking about that accursed title as he did so, and he did not notice my agitation. He had come to Cornwall in pursuit of the last pieces of evidence for his family tree, and some