The Lust of Hate, Guy Newell Boothby [essential books to read .txt] 📗

to let him

in. I followed to receive him.

 

On reaching the inside of our defences, Nikola raised his hat

politely to Mr. Maybourne, while he handed his reins to a trooper

standing by.

 

“Mr. Maybourne, I believe,” he said. “My name is Nikola. I am

afraid I am thrusting myself upon you in a very unseemly fashion, and

at a time when you have no desire to be burdened with outsiders. My

friendship for our friend Wrexford here must be my excuse. I left

Buluwayo at daylight this morning in order to see him.”

 

He held out his hand to me and I found myself unable to do

anything but take it. As usual it was as cold as ice. For the moment

I was so fascinated by the evil glitter in his eyes that I forgot to

wonder how he knew my assumed name. However, I managed to stammer out

something by way of a welcome, and then asked how long he had been in

South Africa.

 

“I arrived two months ago,” he answered, “and after a week in Cape

Town, where I had some business to transact, made my way up here to

see you. It appears I have arrived at an awkward moment, but if I can

help you in any way I hope you will command my services. I am a

tolerable surgeon, and I have the advantage of considerable

experience of assegai wounds.”

 

While he was speaking the bell rang for tea, and at Mr.

Maybourne’s invitation Dr. Nikola accompanied us to where the meal

was spread—picnic fashion—on the ground by the kitchen door. Agnes

was waiting for us, and I saw her start with surprise when her father

introduced the newcomer as Dr. Nikola, a friend of Mr. Wrexford’g.

She bowed gravely to him, but said nothing. I could see that she knew

him for the man Bartrand had warned me against, and for this reason

she was by no means prepossessed in his favour.

 

During the meal Nikola exerted all his talents to please. And such

was his devilish—I can only call it by that name—cleverness, that

by the time we rose from the meal he had put himself on the best of

terms with everyone. Even Agnes seemed to have, for the moment, lost

much of her distrust of him. Once out in the open again I drew Nikola

away from the others, and having walked him out of earshot of the

house, asked the meaning of his visit.

 

“Is it so hard to guess?” he said, as he seated himself on the

pole of a waggon, and favoured me with one of his peculiar smiles. “I

should have thought not.”

 

“I have not tried to guess,” I answered, having by this time

resolved upon my line of action; “and I do not intend to do so. I

wish you to tell me.”

 

“My dear Pennethorne-Wrexford, or Wrexford-Pennethorne,” he said

quietly, “I should advise you not to adopt that tone with me. You

know very well why I have put myself to the trouble of running you to

earth.”

 

“I have not the least notion,” I replied, “and that is the truth.

I thought I had done with you when I said good-bye” to you in Golden

Square that awful night.”

 

“Nobody can hope to have done with me,” he answered, “when they do

not act fairly by me.”

 

“Act fairly by you? What do you mean? How have I not acted fairly

by you?”

 

“By running away in that mysterious fashion, when it was agreed

between us that I should arrange everything. You might have ruined

me.”

 

“Still I do not understand you! How might I have ruined you?”

 

This time I took him unawares. He looked at me for a moment in

sheer surprise.

 

“I should advise you to give up this sort of thing,” he said,

licking his lips in that peculiar cat-like fashion I had noticed in

London. “Remember I know everything, and one word in our friend

Maybourne’s ear, and—well—you know what the result will be. Perhaps

he does not know what an illustrious criminal he is purposing to take

for a son-in-law.”

 

“One insinuation like that again, Nikola,” I cried, “and I’ll have

you put off this place before you know where you are. You dare

to call me a criminal—you, who plotted and planned the

murders that shocked and terrified all England!”

 

“That I do not admit. I only remember that I assisted you to

obtain your revenge on a man who had wronged you. On summing up so

judiciously, pray do not forget that point.”

 

Nikola evidently thought he had obtained an advantage, and was

quick to improve on it.

 

“Come, come,” he said, “what is the use of our quarrelling like a

pair of children? All I want of you is an answer to two simple

questions.”

 

“What are your questions?”

 

“I want to know, first, what you did with Bartrand’s body when you

got rid of it out of the cab.”

 

“You really wish to know that?”

 

He nodded.

 

“Then come with me,” I said, “and I’ll tell you.” I led him into

the house, and, having reached the bed in the corner, pulled down the

sheet.

 

He bent over the figure lying there so still, and then started

back with a cry of surprise. For a moment I could see that he was

non-plussed as he had probably not been in his life before,

but by the time one could have counted twenty, this singular being

was himself again.

 

“I congratulate you,” he said, turning to me and holding out his

hand. “The king has come into his own again. You are now one of the

richest men in the world, and I can ask my second question.”

 

“Be certain first,” I said. “I inherit nothing from Mr.

Bartrand.”

 

“What do you mean by that? I happen to know that his will was made

in your favour.”

 

“You are quite mistaken. He made a later will this afternoon,

leaving all his money and estates to four London hospitals.”

 

Nikola’s face went paler than I had ever seen it yet. His thin

lips trembled perceptibly. The man was visibly anxious.

 

“You will excuse my appearing to doubt you, I hope,” he said, “but

may I see that will?”

 

I called Mr. Maybourne into the room and asked him if he had any

objection to allowing Dr. Nikola to see the paper in question. He

handed it to him without hesitation, keeping close to his elbow while

he perused it. The Doctor read it slowly from beginning to end,

examined the signature, noted the names of the executors, and also of

the witnesses, and when he had done so, returned it to Mr. Maybourne

with a bow.

 

“Thank you,” he said, politely. “It is excellently drawn up, and,

with your evidence against me, I fear it would be foolish for me to

dispute it. In that case, I don’t think I need trouble your

hospitality any further.”

 

Then, turning to me, he led me from the house across to where his

horse was standing.

 

“Good-bye, Pennethorne,” he said. “All I can say of you is that

your luck is greater than your cleverness. I am not so blase

but I can admire a man who can surrender three millions without a

sigh. I must confess I am vulgar enough to find that it costs me a

pang to lose even my sixty thousand. I wanted it badly. Had my

coup only come off, and the dead man in there not been such an

inveterate ass, I should have had the whole amount of his fortune in

my hands by this time, and in six months I would have worked out a

scheme that would have paralyzed Europe. As it is, I must look

elsewhere for the amount. When you wish to be proud of yourself, try

to remember that you have baulked Dr. Nikola in one of his

best-planned schemes, and saved probably half-a-million lives by

doing so. Believe me, there are far cleverer men than you who have

tried to outwit me and failed. I suppose you will marry Miss

Maybourne now. Well, I wish you luck with her. If I am a judge of

character, she will make you an able wife. In ten years time you will

be a commonplace rich man, with scarcely any idea outside your own

domestic circle, while I—well the devil himself knows where or what

I shall be then. I wonder which will be the happier? Now I must be

off. Though you may not think it, I always liked you, and if you had

thrown in your lot with me, I might have made something of you.

Good-bye.”

 

He held out his hand, and as he did so he looked me full in the

face. For the last time I felt the influence of those extraordinary

eyes. I took the hand he offered and bade him good-bye with almost a

feeling of regret, mad as it may seem to say so, at the thought that

in all probability I should never see him again. Next moment he was

on his horse’s back and out on the veldt making for the westward. I

stood and watched him till he was lost in the gathering gloom, and

then went slowly back to the house thinking of the change that had

come into my life, thanking God for my freedom.

 

Three months have passed since the events just narrated took

place, and I am back in Cape Town again, finishing the writing of

this story of the most adventurous period of my life, in Mr.

Maybourne’s study. Tomorrow my wife (for I have been married a week

to-day) and I leave South Africa on a trip round the world. What a

honeymoon it will be!

 

“The Pride of the South,” you will be glad to hear, has made

gallant strides since the late trouble in Rhodesia, and as my shares

have quadrupled in value, to say nothing of the other ventures in

which I have been associated with my father-in-law, I am making rapid

progress towards becoming a rich man. And now it only remains for me

to bring my story to a close. By way of an epilogue let me say that

no better, sweeter, or more loyal wife than I possess could possibly

be desired by any mortal man. I love her with my whole heart and

soul, as she loves me, and I can only hope that every masculine

reader who may have the patience to wade through these, to me,

interminable pages, may prove as fortunate in his choice as I have b

Den. More fortunate, it is certain, he could not be.

 

THE END