The Silent House, Fergus Hume [romantic novels to read .TXT] 📗

street, looking ill and wretched. The man had become a confirmed morphiamaniac, and the habit had weakened his brain. The Count pitied the poor creature, according to his own story, and took him to his home, the whereabouts of which Clear was happily able to remember."

"Where is the house?" asked Lucian, taking out his pocketbook.

"Number 30, St. Bertha's Road, Bayswater," replied Jorce; and when the barrister, for his private information, had made a note of the address, he continued: "It then appeared that Clear was married. The wife told Ferruci that she was afraid of her husband, who, in his fits of drink—for he drank likewise—often threatened to kill her. They had lost their money, and the poor woman was at her wit's end what to do. Ferruci explained to me that out of friendship he was most anxious to befriend Clear, and stated that Mrs. Clear wished to get her husband cured. He proposed, therefore, to put Clear into my asylum, and pay on behalf of the wife."

"A very ingenious and plausible plan," said Lucian. "Well, Doctor, and what did you say?"

"I agreed, of course, provided the man was certified insane in the usual way. Ferruci then departed, promising to bring Mrs. Clear to see me. He brought her late on Christmas Eve, at ten—"

"Ah!" interrupted Lucian, "did she wear a black gauze veil with velvet spots?"

"She did, Mr. Denzil. Have you met her?"

"No, but I have heard of her. She was the woman who visited Wrent in Jersey Street. No doubt Ferruci was waiting for her in the back yard."

"Who is Wrent?" asked Jorce, looking puzzled.

"Don't you know the name, Doctor?"

"No."

"Did Mrs. Clear never mention it?"

"Never."

"Nor Ferruci?"

"No. I never heard the name before," replied Jorce complacently.

"Strange!" said Denzil reflectively. "Yet Wrent seems to be at the bottom of the whole plot. Well, never mind, just now. Please continue, my dear Doctor. What did Mrs. Clear say?"

"Oh, she repeated Ferruci's story, amplified in a feminine fashion. She was afraid of Michael, who, when excited with morphia or drink, would snatch up a knife to attempt her life. Twice she had disarmed him, and now she was tired and frightened. She was willing for him to go into my asylum since Count Ferruci had so kindly consented to bear the expense, but she wished to give him one more chance. Then, as it was late, she stayed here all night. So did the Count, and on Christmas Day they went away."

"When did they come back?"

"About a fortnight later, and they brought with them the man they both called Michael Clear."

"What is he like?"

"An old man with a white beard."

"Is he mad?" asked Lucian bluntly.

"He is not mad now, only weak in the head," replied Jorce professionally, "but he was certainly mad when he arrived. The man's brain is wrecked by morphia."

"Not by drink?"

"No; although it suited Mrs. Clear and Ferruci to say so. But Clear, as I may call him, was very violent, and quite justified Mrs. Clear's desire to sequester him. She told me that he often imagined himself to be other people. Sometimes he would feign to be Napoleon; again the Pope; so when he, a week after he was in the asylum, insisted that he was Mark Vrain, I put it down to his delusion."

"But how could you think he had come by the name, Doctor?"

"My dear sir, at that time the papers were full of the case and its mystery, and as we have a reading-room in this asylum, I fancied that Clear had seen the accounts, and had, as a delusion, called himself Vrain. Afterwards he fell into a kind of comatose state, and for weeks said very little. He was most abject and frightened, and responded in a timid sort of way to the name of Clear. Naturally this confirmed me in my belief that his calling himself Vrain was a delusion. Then he grew better, and one day told me that his name was Vrain. Of course, I did not believe him. Still, he was so persistent about the matter that I thought there might be something in it, and spoke to Ferruci."

"What did he say?"

"He denied that the man's name was anything but Clear. That the wife and two doctors—for the poor soul had been duly certified as insane—had put him into the asylum; and altogether persisted so strongly in his original story that I thought it was absurd to put a crazy man's delusion against a sane man's tale. Besides, everything regarding the certificate and sequestrating of Clear had been quite legal. Two doctors—and very rightly, too—had certified to the insanity of the man; and his wife—as I then believed Mrs. Clear to be—had consented to his detention."

"What made you suspicious that there might be something wrong?" asked Lucian eagerly.

"My visit to meet you, at Ferruci's request, to prove the alibi," responded Jorce. "I thought it was strange, and afterwards, when a detective named Mr. Link, called, I thought it was stranger still."

"But you did not see Link?"

"No. I was in Italy then, but I heard of his visit. In Florence I heard from a most accomplished gossip the whole story of Mr. Vrain's marriage and the prior engagement of Mrs. Vrain to Ferruci. I guessed that there might be some plot, but I could not quite understand how it was carried out, save that Vrain—as I then began to believe Clear to be—had been placed in my asylum under a false name. On my return I intended to see you, when I was laid up in Florence with the fever. Now, however, that we have met, tell me so much of the story as you know. Afterwards we shall see Mr. Vrain."

Lucian was willing enough to show his confidence in Jorce, the more so as he needed his help. Forthwith he told him all he knew, from the time he had met Michael Clear, alias Mark Berwin, alias Mark Vrain, in Geneva Square, down to the moment he had presented himself for information at the gates of "The Haven." Doctor Jorce listened with the greatest attention, his little face puckered up into a grim smile, and shook his head when the barrister ended his recital.

"A bad world, Mr. Denzil, a bad world!" he said, rising. "Come with me, and I'll take you to see my patient."

"But what do you think of it all?" said Denzil, eager for some comment.

"I'll tell you that," rejoined Jorce, "when you have heard the story of Mr. Vrain."

In a few minutes Lucian was led by his guide into a pleasant room, with French windows opening on to a wide verandah, and a sunny lawn set round with flowers. Books were arranged on shelves round the walls, newspapers and magazines were on the table, and near the window, in a comfortable chair, sat an old man with a volume in his hand. As Jorce entered he stood up and shuffled forward with a senile smile of delight. Evidently—and with reason, poor soul—he considered the doctor his very good friend.

"Well, well!" said the cheery Jorce, "and how are you to-day, Mr. Vrain?"

"I feel very well," replied Vrain in a soft, weak voice. "Who is this, Doctor?"

"A young friend of mine, Mr. Vrain. He wishes to hear your story."

"Alas! alas!" sighed Vrain, his eyes filling with tears, "a sad story, sir."

The father of Diana was of middle height, with white hair, and a long white beard which swept his chest. On his cheek Lucian saw the cicatrice of which Diana had spoken, and mainly by which the dead man had been falsely identified as Vrain. He was very like Clear in figure and manner; but, of course, the resemblance in the face was not very close, as Clear had been clean shaven, whereas the real Vrain wore a beard. The eyes were dim and weak-looking, and altogether Lucian saw that Vrain was not fitted to battle with the world in any way, and quite weak enough to become the prey of villains, as had been his sad fate.

"My name is Mark Vrain, young sir," said he, beginning his story without further preamble. "I lived in Berwin Manor, Bath, with my wife Lydia, but she treated me badly by letting another man love her, and I left her. Oh, yes, sir, I left her. I went away to Salisbury, and was very happy there with my books, but, alas! I took morph——"

"Vrain!" said Jorce, holding up his finger, "no!"

"Of course, of course," said the old man, with a watery smile, "I mean I was very happy there. But Signor Ferruci, a black-hearted villain"—his face grew dark as he mentioned the name—"found me out and made me come with him to London. He kept me there for months, and then he brought me here."

"Kept you where, Mr. Vrain?" asked Lucian gently.

The old man looked at him with a vacant eye. "I don't know," he said in a dull voice.

"You came here from Bayswater," hinted Jorce.

"Yes, yes, Bayswater!" cried Vrain, growing excited. "I was there with a woman they called my wife. She was not my wife! My wife is fair, this woman was dark. Her name was Maud Clear: my wife's name is Lydia."

"Did Mrs. Clear say you were her husband, Michael?"

"Yes. She called me Michael Clear, and brought me to stay with the doctor. But I am not Michael Clear!"

CHAPTER XXVI THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE

As soon as Lucian arrived back in his rooms he sat down at his desk and wrote a long letter to Diana, giving a full account of his extraordinary discovery of her father in Jorce's asylum, and advising her to come up at once to London.

When he posted this—which he did the same night—he sighed to think it was not a love letter. He could have covered reams of paper with words of passion and adoration; he could have poured out his whole soul at the feet of his divinity, telling her of his love, his aspirations, his hopes and fears. No doubt, from a common-sense view, the letter would have been silly enough, but it would have relieved his mind and completed his happiness of knowing that he loved and was beloved.

But in place of writing thus, he was compelled by his promise to Diana to pen a description of his late discovery, and interesting as the case was now growing, he found it irksome to detail the incident of the afternoon. He wished to be a lover, not a detective.

So absent-minded and distraught was Lucian, that Miss Greeb, who had long suspected something was wrong with him, spoke that very evening about himself. She declared that Lucian was working too hard, that he needed another rest, although he had just returned from the country, and recommended a sleeping draught. Finally she produced a letter which had just arrived, and as it was in a female hand, Miss Greeb watched its effect on her admired lodger with the keen eyes of a jealous woman. When she saw him flush and seize it eagerly, casting, meanwhile, an impatient look on her to leave the room, she knew the truth at once, and retired hurriedly to the kitchen, where she shed floods of tears.

"I might have guessed it," gasped Miss Greeb to a comfortable cat which lay selfishly before the fire. "He's far too good-looking not to be snapped up. He'll be leaving me and setting up house with that other woman. I only hope she'll do for him as well as I have done. I wonder if she's beautiful and rich. Oh, how dreadful it all is!" But the cat made no comment on this tearful address—not as much as a mew. It rolled over into a warmer place and went to sleep again. Cats are