XI. ADVENTURE OF THE MISERLY MARQUIS (continued 2)

It was the lane in which stood the Home for Destitute and Decayed Cats, whither Logan had once abducted Rangoon, the Siamese puss.

‘Thank you,’ said Merton simply. ‘And I am to ask for?’

‘Ask first for Dr. Fogarty. You will tell him that you wish to see the Ertwa Oknurcha.’

‘Ah, Australian for “The Big Man,”’ said Merton.

‘I don’t know what it means,’ said Miss Markham. ‘Dr. Fogarty will then ask, “Have you the churinga?”’

The girl drew out a slim gold chain which hung round her neck and under her dress. At the end of it was a dark piece of wood, shaped much like a large cigar, and decorated with incised concentric circles, stained red.

‘Take that and show it to Dr. Fogarty,’ said Miss Markham, detaching the object from the chain.

Merton returned it to her. ‘I know where to get a similar churinga,’ he said. ‘Keep your own. Its absence, if asked for, might lead to awkward questions.’

‘Thank you, I can trust you,’ said Miss Markham, adding, ‘You will address my father as Dr. Melville.’

‘Again thanks, and good-bye,’ said Merton. He bowed and withdrew.

‘She is a good deal upset, poor girl,’ Merton remarked to Madame Claudine, who, on going to comfort Miss Markham with tea, found her weeping. Merton took another cab, and drove to Trevor’s house.

After dinner (at which there were no guests), and in the smoking-room, Trevor asked whether he had made any progress.

‘Everything succeeded to a wish,’ said Merton. ‘You remember Water Lane?’

‘Where Logan carried the Siamese cat in my cab,’ said Trevor, grinning at the reminiscence. ‘Rather! I reconnoitred the place with Logan.’

‘Well, on the day after to-morrow I have business there.’

‘Not at the Cats’ Home?’

‘No, but perhaps you might reconnoitre again. Do you remember a house with high walls and spikes on them?’

‘I do,’ said Trevor; ‘but how do you know? You never were there. You disapproved of Logan’s method in the case of the cat.’

‘I never was there; I only made a guess, because the house I am interested in is a private asylum.’

‘Well, you guessed right. What then?’

‘You might reconnoitre the ground to-morrow—the exits, there are sure to be some towards waste land or market gardens.’

‘Jolly!’ said Trevor. ‘I’ll make up as a wanderer from Suffolk, looking for a friend in the slums; semi-bargee kind of costume.’

‘That would do,’ said Merton. ‘But you had better go in the early morning.’

‘A nuisance. Why?’

‘Because, later, you will have to get a gang of fellows to be about the house the day after, when I pay my visit.’

‘Fellows of our own sort, or the police?’

‘Neither. I thought of fellows of our own sort. They would talk and guess.’

‘Better get some of Ned Mahony’s gang?’ asked Trevor.

Mr. Mahony was an ex-pugilist, and a distinguished instructor in the art of self-defence. He also was captain of a gang of ‘chuckers out.’

‘Yes,’ said Merton, ‘that is my idea. They will guess, too; but when they know the place is a private lunatic asylum their hypothesis is obvious.’

‘They’ll think that a patient is to be rescued?’

‘That will be their idea. And the old trick is a good trick. Cart of coals blocked in the gateway, or with another cart—the bigger the better—in the lane. The men will dress accordingly. Others will have stolen to the back and sides of the house; you will, in short, stop the earths after I enter. Your brougham, after setting me down, will wait in Hammersmith Road, or whatever the road outside is.’

‘I may come?’ asked Trevor.

‘In command, as a coal carter.’

‘Hooray!’ said Trevor, ‘and I’ll tell you what, I won’t reconnoitre as a bargee, but as a servant out of livery sent to look for a cat at the Home. And I’ll mistake the asylum for the Home for Cats, and try to scout a little inside the gates.’

‘Capital,’ said Merton. ‘Then, later, I want you to go to a curiosity shop near the Museum’ (he mentioned the street), ‘and look into the window. You’ll see a little brown piece of wood like this.’ Merton sketched rapidly the piece of wood which Miss Markham wore under her dress. ‘The man has several. Buy one about the size of a big cigar for me, and buy one or two other trifles first.’

‘The man knows me,’ said Trevor, ‘I have bought things from him.’

‘Very good, but don’t buy it when any other customer is in the shop. And, by the way, take Mrs. Lumley’s portmanteau—the lock needs mending—to Jones’s in Sloane Street to be repaired. One thing more, I should like to add a few lines to that manuscript I gave you to keep in your safe.’

Trevor brought the sealed envelope. Merton added a paragraph and resealed it. Trevor locked it up again.

On the following day Trevor started early, did his scouting in Water Lane, and settled with Mr. Mahony about his gang of muscular young prize-fighters. He also brought the native Australian curiosity, and sent Mrs. Lumley’s portmanteau to have the lock repaired.

Merton determined to call at Dr. Fogarty’s asylum at four in the afternoon. The gang, under Trevor, was to arrive half an hour later, and to surround and enter the premises if Merton did not emerge within half an hour.

At four o’clock exactly Trevor’s brougham was at the gates of the asylum. The footman rang the bell, a porter opened a wicket, and admitted a lady of fashionable aspect, who asked for Dr. Fogarty. She was ushered into his study, her card (‘Louise, 13 --- Street’) was taken by the servant, and Dr. Fogarty appeared. He was a fair, undecided looking man, with blue wandering eyes, and long untidy, reddish whiskers. He bowed and looked uncomfortable, as well he might.

‘I have called to see the Ertwa Oknurcha, Dr. Fogarty,’ said Merton.

‘Oh Lord,’ said Dr. Fogarty, and murmured, ‘Another of his lady friends!’ adding, ‘I must ask, Miss, have you the churinga?’

Merton produced, out of his muff, the Australian specimen which Trevor had bought.

The doctor inspected it. ‘I shall take it to the Ertwa Oknurcha,’ he said, and shambled out. Presently he returned. ‘He will see you, Miss.’

Merton found the redoubtable Dr. Markham, an elderly man, clean shaven, prompt-looking, with very keen dark eyes, sitting at a writing table, with a few instruments of his profession lying about. The table stood on an oblong space of uncarpeted and polished flooring of some extent. Dr. Fogarty withdrew, the other doctor motioned Merton to a chair on the opposite side of the table. This chair was also on the uncarpeted space, and Merton observed four small brass plates in the parquet. Arranging his draperies, and laying aside his muff, Merton sat down, slightly shifting the position of the chair.

‘Perhaps, Dr. Melville,’ he said, ‘it will be more reassuring to you if I at once hold my hands up,’ and he sat there and smiled, holding up his neatly gloved hands.

The doctor stared, and his hand stole towards an instrument like an unusually long stethoscope, which lay on his table.

Merton sat there ‘hands up,’ still smiling. ‘Ah, the blow-tube?’ he said. ‘Very good and quiet! Do you use urali? Infinitely better, at close quarters, than the noisy old revolver.’

‘I see I have to do with a cool hand, sir,’ said the doctor.

‘Ah,’ said Merton. ‘Then let us talk as between man and man.’ He tilted his chair backwards, and crossed his legs. ‘By the way, as I have no Aaron and Hur to help me to hold up my hands, may I drop them? The attitude, though reassuring, is fatiguing.’

‘If you won’t mind first allowing me to remove your muff,’ said the doctor. It lay on the table in front of Merton.

‘By all means, no gun in my muff,’ said Merton. ‘In fact I think the whole pistol business is overdone, and second rate.’

‘I presume that I have the honour to speak to Mr. Merton?’ asked the doctor. ‘You slipped through the cordon?’

‘Yes, I was the intoxicated miner,’ said Merton. ‘No doubt you have received a report from your agents?’

‘Stupid fellows,’ said the doctor.

‘You are not flattering to me, but let us come to business. How much?’

‘I need hardly ask,’ said the doctor, ‘it would be an insult to your intelligence, whether you have taken the usual precautions?’

Merton, whose chair was tilted, threw himself violently backwards, upsetting his chair, and then scrambled nimbly to his feet. Between him and the table yawned a square black hole of unknown depth.

‘Hardly fair, Dr. Melville,’ said he, picking up the chair, and placing it on the carpet, ‘besides, I have taken the ordinary precautions. The house is surrounded—Ned Mahony’s lambs—the usual statement is in the safe of a friend. We must really come to the point. Time is flying,’ and he looked at his watch. ‘I can give you twenty minutes.’

‘Have you anything in the way of terms to propose?’ asked the doctor, filling his pipe.

‘Well, first, absolute secrecy. I alone know the state of the case.’

‘Has Mr. Logan no guess?’

‘Not the faintest suspicion. The detectives, when I left Kirkburn, had not even found the trap door, you understand. You hit on its discovery through knowing the priest’s hole at Oxburgh Hall, I suppose?’

The doctor nodded.

‘You can guarantee absolute secrecy?’ he asked.

‘Naturally, the knowledge is confined to me, you, and your partners. I want the secrecy in Mr. Logan’s interests, and you know why.’

‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘that is point one. So far I am with you.’

‘Then, to enter on odious details,’ said Merton, ‘had you thought of any terms?’

‘The old man was stiff,’ said the doctor, ‘and your side only offered to double him in your advertisement, you know.’

‘That was merely a way of speaking,’ said Merton. ‘What did the marquis propose?’

‘Well, as his offer is not a basis of negotiation?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Merton.

‘Five hundred he offered, out of which we were to pay his fare back to Scotland.’

Both men laughed.

‘But you have your own ideas?’ said Merton.

‘I had thought of 15,000l. and leaving England. He is a multimillionaire, the marquis.’

‘It is rather a pull,’ said Merton. ‘Now speaking as a professional man, and on honour, how is his lordship?’ Merton asked.

‘Speaking as a professional man, he may live a year; he cannot live eighteen months, I stake my reputation on that.’

Merton mused.

‘I’ll tell you what we can do,’ he said. ‘We can guarantee the interest, at a fancy rate, say five per cent, during the marquis’s life, which you reckon as good for a year and a half, at most. The lump sum we can pay on his decease.’

The doctor mused in his turn.

‘I don’t like it. He may alter his will, and then—where do I come in?’

‘Of course that is an objection,’ said Merton. ‘But where do you come in if you refuse? Logan, I can assure you (I have read up the Scots law since I came to town), is the heir if the marquis dies intestate. Suppose that I do not leave this house in a few minutes, Logan won’t bargain with you; we settled that; and really you will have taken a great deal of trouble to your own considerable risk. You see the usual document, my statement, is lodged with a friend.’

‘There is certainly a good deal in what you say,’ remarked the doctor.

‘Then, to take a more cheerful view,’ said Merton, ‘I have medical authority for stating that any will made now, or later, by the marquis, would probably be upset, on the ground of mental unsoundness, you know. So Logan would succeed, in spite of a later will.’

The doctor smiled. ‘That point I grant. Well, one must chance something. I accept your proposals. You will give me a written agreement, signed by Mr. Logan, for the arrangement.’

‘Yes, I have power to act.’

‘Then, Mr. Merton, why in the world did you not let your friend walk in Burlington Arcade, and see the lady? He would have been met with the same terms, and could have proposed the same modifications.’

‘Well, Dr. Melville, first, I was afraid that he might accidentally discover the real state of the case, as I surmised that it existed—that might have led to family inconveniences, you know.’

‘Yes,’ the doctor admitted, ‘I have felt that. My poor daughter, a good girl, sir! It wrung my heartstrings, I assure you.’

‘I have the warmest sympathy with you,’ said Merton, going on. ‘Well, in the second place, I was not sure that I could trust Mr. Logan, who has rather a warm temper, to conduct the negotiations. Thirdly, I fear I must confess that I did what I have done—well, “for human pleasure.”’

‘Ah, you are young,’ said the doctor, sighing.

‘Now,’ said Merton, ‘shall I sign a promise? We can call Dr. Fogarty up to witness it. By the bye, what about “value received”? Shall we say that we purchase your ethnological collection?’

The doctor grinned, and assented, the deed was written, signed, and witnessed by Dr. Fogarty, who hastily retreated.

‘Now about restoring the marquis,’ said Merton. ‘He’s here, of course; it was easy enough to get him into an asylum. Might I suggest a gag, if by chance you have such a thing about you? To be removed, of course, when once I get him into the house of a friend. And the usual bandage over his eyes: he must never know where he has been.’

‘You think of everything, Mr. Merton,’ said the doctor. ‘But, how are you to account for the marquis’s reappearance alive?’ he asked.

‘Oh that—easily! My first theory, which I fortunately mentioned to his medical attendant, Dr. Douglas, in the train, before I reached Kirkburn, was that he had recovered from catalepsy, and had secretly absconded, for the purpose of watching Mr. Logan’s conduct. We shall make him believe that this is the fact, and the old woman who watched him—’

‘Plucky old woman,’ said the doctor.

‘Will swear to anything that he chooses to say.’

‘Well, that is your affair,’ said the doctor.

‘Now,’ said Merton, ‘give me a receipt for 750l.; we shall tell the marquis that we had to spring 250l. on his original offer.’

The doctor wrote out, stamped, and signed the receipt. ‘Perhaps I had better walk in front of you down stairs?’ he asked Merton.

‘Perhaps it really would be more hospitable,’ Merton acquiesced.

Merton was ushered again into Dr. Fogarty’s room on the ground floor. Presently the other doctor reappeared, leading a bent and much muffled up figure, who preserved total silence—for excellent reasons. The doctor handed to Merton a sealed envelope, obviously the marquis’s will. Merton looked closely into the face of the old marquis, whose eyes, dropping senile tears, showed no sign of recognition.

Dr. Fogarty next adjusted a silken bandage, over a wad of cotton wool, which he placed on the eyes of the prisoner.

Merton then took farewell of Dr. Melville (alias Markham); he and Dr. Fogarty supported the tottering steps of Lord Restalrig, and they led him to the gate.

‘Tell the porter to call my brougham,’ said Merton to Dr. Fogarty.

The brougham was called and came to the gate, evading a coal-cart which was about to enter the lane. Merton aided the marquis to enter, and said ‘Home.’ A few rough fellows, who were loitering in the lane, looked curiously on. In half an hour the marquis, his gag and the bandage round his eyes removed, was sitting in Trevor’s smoking-room, attended to by Miss Trevor.

It is probably needless to describe the simple and obvious process (rather like that of the Man, the Goose, and the Fox) by which Mrs. Lumley, with her portmanteau, left Trevor’s house that evening to pay another visit, while Merton himself arrived, in evening dress, to dinner at a quarter past eight. He had telegraphed to Logan: ‘Entirely successful. Come up by the 11.30 to-night, and bring Mrs. Bower.’

The marquis did not appear at dinner. He was in bed, and, thanks to a sleeping potion, slumbered soundly. He awoke about nine in the morning to find Mrs. Bower by his bedside.

‘Eh, marquis, finely we have jinked them,’ said Mrs. Bower; and she went on to recount the ingenious measures by which the marquis, recovering from his ‘dwawm,’ had secretly withdrawn himself.

‘I mind nothing of it, Jeanie, my woman,’ said the marquis. ‘I thought I wakened with some deevil running a knife into me; he might have gone further, and I might have fared worse. He asked for money, but, faith, we niffered long and came to no bargain. And a woman brought me away. Who was the woman?’

‘Oh, dreams,’ said Mrs. Bower. ‘Ye had another sair fit o’ the dwawming, and we brought you here to see the London doctors. Hoo could ony mortal speerit ye away, let be it was the fairies, and me watching you a’ the time! A fine gliff ye gie’d me when ye sat up and askit for sma’ yill’ (small beer).

‘I mind nothing of it,’ replied the marquis. However, Mrs. Bower stuck to her guns, and the marquis was, or appeared to be, resigned to accept her explanation. He dozed throughout the day, but next day he asked for Merton. Their interview was satisfactory; Merton begged leave to introduce Logan, and the marquis, quite broken down, received his kinsman with tears, and said nothing about his marriage.

‘I’m a dying man,’ he remarked finally, ‘but I’ll live long enough to chouse the taxes.’

His sole idea was to hand over (in the old Scottish fashion) the main part of his property to Logan, inter vivos, and then to live long enough to evade the death-duties. Merton and Logan knew well enough the unsoundness of any such proceedings, especially considering the mental debility of the old gentleman. However, the papers were made out. The marquis retired to one of his English seats, after which event his reappearance was made known to the world. In his English home Logan sedulously nursed him. A more generous diet than he had ever known before did wonders for the marquis, though he peevishly remonstrated against every bottle of wine that was uncorked. He did live for the span which he deemed necessary for his patriotic purpose, and peacefully expired, his last words being ‘Nae grand funeral.’

Public curiosity, of course, was keenly excited about the mysterious reappearance of the marquis in life. But the interviewers could extract nothing from Mrs. Bower, and Logan declined to be interviewed. To paragraphists the mystery of the marquis was ‘a two months’ feast,’ like the case of Elizabeth Canning, long ago.

Logan inherited under the marquis’s original will, and, of course, the Exchequer benefitted in the way which Lord Restalrig had tried to frustrate.

Miss Markham (whose father is now the distinguished head of the ethnological department in an American museum) did not persist in her determination never to see Logan again. The beautiful Lady Fastcastle never allows her photograph to appear in the illustrated weekly papers. Logan, or rather Fastcastle, does not unto this day, know the secret of the Emu’s feathers, though, later, he sorely tried the secretiveness of Merton, as shall be shown in the following narrative.