CHAPTER XXVIII
THE FACE IN THE BOX
BY the earliest train next morning Alexia and her brother travelled down to Bradbury, and found to their relief that Herriard’s condition was not nearly so serious as they had feared. He was suffering from a wound in the head and slight concussion caused by the vicious blow that had been dealt him; but the doctor made light of his hurt, and declared two or three days would see him practically recovered.
This was grateful news to Alexia, who had dreaded the worst; nevertheless the ugly, haunting fact remained of a malignant purpose secretly at work against her lover and herself. None of the local politicians could account for what was admittedly an organized attack. It had taken the whole town by surprise, not merely by its unusual ferocity, but by the comparative absence of adequate motive, and by the secrecy with which it had been planned. But to Alexia it was no mystery. She recognized well enough the determined, energetic brain that had conceived and designed the murderous affray, and she was well aware how thankful (if fear could leave room for gladness) she might be that the attack had failed to achieve its ulterior and especial object. Gastineau’s words to her had made that plain enough.
Nevertheless, so anxious was she not to retard or jeopardize her lover’s recovery that until it was almost complete she said nothing to him of Gastineau’s visit. Then she told him everything, and the diabolical plot became clear to them both. It was certain now that the man Herriard had seen was Hencher; to him, doubtless, had been left the final conduct of the attack; it must, too, have been he who had sent off the late telegram to Alexia. But the whole object and motive of the affair were so clearly the outcome of Gastineau’s design against Herriard, that it seemed scarcely worth while to piece together the details of the scheme.
“Naturally, it is of the utmost importance for his safety to put me out of the way,” Herriard said bitterly; “quite apart from his desire to marry you. You and I are the only two people in the world he has really to fear; we know too much; in fact, everything. If once I were dead, and you his wife, that fear would be laid to rest, and he would be free to practise whatever new scheme of life he may have decided upon.”
“Then,” suggested Alexia, restlessly eager, “let us forestall him, and tell everything to the police. It is our only chance. Are we to be at the mercy of this devil incarnate?”
“Who has none,” was the gloomy reply. “No,” Herriard continued, with a shake of the head; “there is no hope in that. I can only repeat that there is nothing tangible against Gastineau; only a suspicion, on which the authorities would hardly dare to arrest him. His supposititious death is no offence at law.”
“But, my dear Geoffrey, are you, then, to go forever in fear of your life? Do these threats and attempts constitute no offence?”
Herriard laughed hopelessly. “Who could prove them? Do you think that calculating mind has not foreseen and provided against every possible contingency? It would give a man of Gastineau’s resource little trouble to loose himself from any knots with which we might try to bind him. My story of his threats he would probably laugh out of court.”
“But his attack upon you in your chambers?”
“It would be uncorroborated. He would probably swear that I attacked him; and our former relations would give colour to the story he would concoct, while they would tend to the discredit of my evidence. No, dear one, I see no help or hope from an appeal to the law. Just think how improbable, how incredible my story would sound told in the dry atmosphere of a Law Court, and impugned by the cleverest brain in the profession.”
“Yes; I fear you are right,” Alexia said dejectedly.
“Even if I gained my point,” Herriard went on, “it would not mean effective protection against him. London is the best policed city in the world, but that does not prevent a man’s life being absolutely at the mercy of any other man’s determination to take it. And Gastineau’s purpose is, we know, above everything tenacious and relentless.”
“Geoffrey, my darling,” Alexia cried in her agitation, “what are we to do? Is there no hope? I would rather kill this fiend with my own hand than that he should take you from me.”
“He has not taken me yet, and I mean to make a fight for it,” Herriard assured her, assuming a confidence he did not feel. He knew his enemy’s untiring vindictiveness and resource too well.
For a long while they talked over chances and expedients for escaping from the net, spun by that busy brain, that seemed to have enmeshed them. The present moment was theirs, with its mockery of freedom, and it seemed monstrous to accept the future with blank despair. In the end, after many a futile struggle against the narrowing circle of bands that was drawn round them, after many a suggestion rejected in its very conception, a course was decided upon. It was that they should be married at once, with the closest secrecy that might hope to elude even Gastineau’s vigilance, and that they should leave England, as already planned, for a long sojourn on Count von Rohnburg’s Austrian estate. Certainly it seemed but a poor method of securing safety;—was there a corner on the globe where a man might hope to hide from that inexorable, unswerving pursuit?—still there was the chance, the only one, of snatching a fearful, short-lived joy in defiance of the incarnate malignity which forbade it.
Once decided upon, the details of the plan were soon settled. A special license would be procured, and the marriage would take place at a village church in Gloucestershire, the vicar of which was an old friend and schoolfellow of Herriard’s. Then, with all the wariness and secrecy they could devise, they would set off upon the long journey to Rohnburg, trusting to chance for safety, and to the improbable event that Gastineau might see fit to abandon his scheme of persecution and pursuit. At least, they argued, the danger would not be increased by the change of locality. He might, indeed, be better able to deal with his enemy, should he follow him, in that remote spot than in one of the centres of civilization, where the rules of law and order permit no drastic measures for obviating an unprovable danger. Anyhow at Rohnburg they would be man to man.
A very few days saw Herriard quite recovered from the hurt which had by good fortune just fallen short of its sinister intent, and the plans for the hurried marriage were carried through without a hitch. Both Alexia and he felt that the peaceful village church in its picturesque seclusion made the ceremony, which derived an added solemnity from the threatening cloud of the unknown which in the glorious sunshine grew darker by contrast, fitting indeed to a union set in all the element of romance. But that day of happiness and many that followed were unmarred by any sign of the dreaded fate that should be dogging them. Whether Gastineau were near or far from them, they were troubled by no suggestion of his presence or intentions; their world, full of snatched delight, seemed free from that hateful influence.
From the lovely rural nook Herriard and his bride made their way across country to Harwich, thence to the Continent; and reached Vienna, the penultimate stage of their journey, without any disquieting incident.
With a confidence born of the continued immunity from all indication of danger, they determined to stay two days in the fascinating Austrian capital. On the morning after their arrival Herriard happened to meet Dr. Hallamar in the Kärnthnerstrasse. An impulse made him accost the great specialist, and speak of the subject which dominated his mind. After a few words of greeting, he said, “That was a wonderful cure of yours, Doctor, in the case of Mr. Murray.”
Just a film of caution seemed to form over the professional enthusiasm which illuminated the doctor’s face.
“Ah, yes; in many ways the most remarkable of my experience. Unfortunately——” he broke off, eyeing Herriard doubtfully. “A singular man, your friend Mr. Murray,” he added, tentatively, it seemed.
“Very,” Herriard agreed. “You refer to his wishing to keep his cure a secret?”
Hallamar nodded, throwing out his hands expressively. “Ach! There it is,” he exclaimed vehemently. “The most extraordinary case of all I have treated. The most—I say it without vanity; science is, as I follow it, too serious, too stern in its reality to admit of that—the most surprising cure, utterly unhoped-for; I can tell you, Mr. Herriard, I undertook the case with great reluctance. My time is precious; moreover I am not fond of courting failure, and charging a necessarily high fee for a foregone disappointment. But there was something observable in your friend’s character and temperament which induced me to undertake the experiment, for it was nothing more.”
“He is a man of great determination.”
The Professor made a significant gesture. “Quite abnormal. And it was in a great measure to that we owe a cure which comes as near to a miracle as science has yet attained. Ah! such strength of will, such fixity of purpose, what would the world be if they were general? A paradise in which all evils and difficulties would be overcome—or a hell of restless intellect. Well,” he gave a shrug and a smile, “we are better as we are. Nevertheless your friend is a very remarkable man: it is a personality with which I am pleased, as an experience, to have been brought in contact.”
“I can understand that,” Herriard said, with a shade of gloom. “Then Murray was practically a sound man again when I first mentioned him to you?”
“Certainly he was,” Hallamar answered emphatically. “For what seemed, even to me, a really hopeless case, it was an astonishingly quick recovery of power. He was weeks ahead of my hitherto best patient. But then I have never had a patient of his character. Yes; he was cured when you first expressed a wish that I should treat him. And I may say I was much surprised that you, his intimate friend, should have been kept in the dark.”
“He wished, no doubt, to give me an agreeable surprise,” Herriard explained grimly. “As it was, I found out his recovery by a mere accident.”
“Ach, so!” Dr. Hallamar’s strong face wore a look of sagacious curiosity. “It is strange. Yes; I remember he sent me a note desiring me to say nothing about his recovery to you. Ah, a man of singular strength of mind; he was evidently preparing a surprise for his friend. You are his great friend; not?”
The question was put so abruptly, so pointedly, that Herriard was startled into looking up quickly into the other’s face. He felt that Hallamar was trying to read in his eyes the true state of his relationship with Gastineau; and that the result was a confirmed doubt.
“We are scarcely,” he answered, “as friendly as we were once.”
“No?” Hallamar’s manner could not be said to express even a polite regret. “Well, perhaps that may be not altogether a bad thing,” he suggested. “Mr. Murray is too clever for close friendship with most of us. Such towering intellect as his stands better alone.”
With which significant, if equivocal, comment he gave his hand to Herriard and hurried off.
It was on the evening before their departure from Vienna that a strange experience befell them which, for a time at least, brought back their fears. Herriard had taken a box at the old Burg Theatre to see a famous melodramatic piece that had won popularity all over the Continent. At one part of the performance the lights in the auditorium were lowered to enhance the effect of a thrilling scene. Suddenly, as they sat in the darkness, Alexia clutched Herriard’s arm. “Geoffrey!” she exclaimed under her breath.
Under the impression that the blood-curdling business on the stage had affected her, he gave her hand a reassuring clasp, and whispered a few light words making fun of the mimic horrors. But after that first start Alexia had quickly recovered her self-possession. She raised her fan till it half covered her face, while her eyes were directed apprehensively across the house.
“Geoffrey,” she whispered, coolly now, though with an intensity of repressed fear, “don’t look yet. In that box opposite, next the stage, a man is watching us. Be careful.”
So the fear had returned. Herriard leaned back in his chair with an affected yawn and looked at the box Alexia had indicated. It was the only one on that side of the house which seemed untenanted.
“I can see no one in it,” he said in a low tone. “The box seems empty.”
“I am certain,” she whispered back behind her fan, “that there was a man in it just now. I saw a pair of hateful eyes watching us out of the darkness. They have disappeared now; but I am sure of it.”
“Gastineau?” Herriard dreaded to ask the question, yet knew there was no safety in ignoring the worst, if such it were.
“I cannot be certain,” Alexia answered, and the tremor of her tone seemed to belie the doubt she expressed. “Is there another man on earth with eyes like his?”
Herriard tried to laugh reassuringly. “Surely that is not inconceivable,” he returned, “especially in this cosmopolitan city. You say the man was watching us?”
“Yes.”
Herriard strained his look to detect a sign of movement in the obscurity of the apparently empty box. But nothing broke the dead blackness of the recess. “I will go and make certain,” he said, rising.
“No, no, Geoffrey,” she objected apprehensively, “stay here; you must not go. There may be danger.” And as she looked up at him, he could see, even through the darkness, the fear in her eyes.
“It is all right, darling,” he replied, with perhaps more confidence than he felt. “I have my revolver; there can be no danger. Uncertainty is the worst now we have to fear, and I must put an end to that.” So, with a reassuring caress, he left her.
Traversing the now dimly lighted semi-circular corridor Herriard made his way round the house till he came to the box he sought. Somewhat to his surprise, the door stood ajar. He opened it, and looked in. The box was empty.
Having convinced himself of this, Herriard asked the name of the gentleman who had occupied the box. He was told that through a misunderstanding that particular box had not been let, although the house was otherwise full. When he insisted that it had been lately occupied, he was told that he must be mistaken, or perhaps one of the attendants had gone into it for a few minutes to watch the great scene. Anyhow the officials were certain that the box had not been let or regularly occupied that evening.
Considerably relieved, Herriard went back to Alexia. As he reached her the curtain fell, and the lights were turned up again. “It was your fancy, dear one,” he said, in answer to her apprehensive look. “No one was in that box. I searched it thoroughly and am certain it was empty; besides, they tell me it was not let to-night.”
He was troubled to see that she was not reassured. “There was some one in it,” she asserted in a tone of conviction. “Directly you had left me the door of that box opened, and a man passed out. I am sure of that. I distinctly saw the light from the passage beyond, and the man’s figure against it.”
“It is quite likely,” he replied. “The official whom I spoke to suggested that one of the attendants went into the empty box to watch the scene. That is the real explanation; but we, having Gastineau on the nerves, are liable to see him anywhere.”
It was plain to him that Alexia could not bring herself to accept the explanation, plausible as it was. The enjoyment of the evening was gone; they soon after left the theatre and returned to their hotel.
Neither on that night, however, nor on the next day, which was passed in completing their long journey, did they, although keenly alert, see anything to confirm their uneasiness. Gastineau, if it had indeed been he, was a man easily recognized, but their watchfulness saw no one resembling him. As the hours wore on, shortening the distance between her and the home she loved, Alexia’s spirits rose, and she almost succeeded in persuading herself that the terror of the night before had been but a creature of her nervous fancy. And so it was in a happier state of mind that they caught their first glimpse of the great Schloss Rohnburg, standing in romantic picturesqueness amid its setting of pine woods; and at the sight of the noble old house, welcoming them in all its peaceful strength and beauty, they forgot their fears in the sense of security it suggested. Here was an asylum indeed; a delightful refuge from the intrigues and dangers of the outside world. They drove into the courtyard with a grateful sense of relief, and a feeling that they had outstripped their Nemesis and left danger far behind them.
The days that followed confirmed this idea, that the security for which they had scarcely dared to hope had been attained. The estate of Rohnburg seemed a compact miniature kingdom, in which Herriard and his bride were for the time all-powerful, and from which their authority would serve to keep any threatening intruder away. Somehow Herriard felt, as he explored the place, that the unwelcome appearance even of Gastineau in that spot would lose much of the terror which would be inspired by the idea of his tracking them with a sleuth-hound’s tenacity amid the labyrinth of a populous city. To meet an enemy in the open should have no terrors for a man of courage, since the elements of surprise and mystery, which beget fear, are absent. So Herriard found, as the days passed, that the haunting sense of an impending blow coming from a quarter of which he was uncertain began to diminish. In an atmosphere of security, freedom, happiness, his spirits rose, carrying Alexia’s with them. They walked together in the park which girded the Schloss, strolling along woodland paths, and every succeeding day they went farther afield. At first their walks were attended by a furtive watchfulness against the appearance of a dreaded form, for a hint of a sinister presence. Nothing, however, occurred to fulfil their expectation, and, by degrees, the strain of alertness was relaxed. And, while it lasted, they neither of them cared to let the other know how seriously their minds were haunted by the ever-present misgiving. For a brave mind hates the fear that is forced upon it too greatly to care to speak of it where the telling can avail nothing. And, assuredly, the more reason we have for keeping a bold face, the better too it is for the beating down of a dread which is nothing more than an invitation to our danger.
However, the long days as they went by brought with them nothing but the delight of lovers’ existence, without sign of a disturbing element. Their heaven was without a cloud and they began to reproach themselves with having failed to enjoy its glory through vain fears of a tempest. So, as the time slipped by, the startling events they had passed through seemed nothing more than the recollection of a troubled dream, now fading in the light and joyousness of day. The venerable stronghold which was, for many a month now, to be their home, imparted to their hearts its sense of calm security. It was fairy-land they had reached at last; the gloom of the demon’s night had been left far behind.
Yet on the bright sky of confident happiness a little fleck was soon to appear, the precursor of cloud and danger.