The Whispering Lane/Chapter 21

Edith Danby died, and went to her own place, being thus mercifully released from dire troubles, which were certainly not of her own making. But the evil she was supposed to have done lived after her, as—on Shakespeare’s authority—evil always does, with its nine lives of a cat. Those, searching out the truth, indeed, believed her to be more sinned against than sinning, but public opinion still held her to be guilty. Furthermore this belief was emphasized, when it became known how Roderick More had come by his death. The woman had been a monster, a vampire, plotting with Slanton, after the execution of the will, to secure immediate possession of the money by murdering the young soldier. Afterwards, it was to be expected that she should have strangled her accomplice, since, driven to extremities by her refusal to share the plunder, he might have denounced her. Oh, it was as plain as plain, said everyone. The Danby creature had committed the second murder to cover up the first.

When More and Rackham were brought before the London magistrates, and when the extraordinary story of their conspiracy was told, the newspapers made the most of so sensational an occurrence. Highly coloured accounts of this, that, and the other thing, were published, morning and evening: fiction poaching on the domain of fact in every paragraph. The Spiritualists were jeered at unkindly, for having permitted themselves to be tricked by science-very-much-up-to-date, and their later reports, dealing with communications from the unseen world, were received with more suspicions than ever. Whereat the Materialists rejoiced, deeming that theirs was the victory.

Jimmy Took, and those with him, who had traced the tortuous windings of the trail under such foggy conditions, were applauded to the echo. And of course, the journals were filled with pictures of the scenes connected with the tragedy, and portraits of the actors therein. The Whispering Lane, the bungalow, the woodland pool, wherein the motor-cycle had been sunk, together with reprints of the Fryfeld cottage and its sombre surroundings: these appeared daily. Nor were wanting realistic representations of Wung’s cellar, of the steep roofs over which Tyson had been chased, whence Jenny had fallen, and the sinister sordidness of the cul-de-sac. The strange story with its picturesque villainy was read with avidity from one end of the kingdom to the other. It was almost impossible to believe that it was actually true, so suggestively fictional were the details.

Edith, credited with the commission of two crimes, was loudly condemned on all sides, but opinions differed widely concerning Rackham’s behaviour. Some held that he was justified in taking the law into his own hands, since an appeal to public justice, on his solitary evidence, would have been scouted as heated imagination. Others looked askance at his assumption of authority, objecting to private vengeance being taken, even for so cruel a wrong. Many letters, for and against, were written to the newspapers regarding the moral aspect of the man’s doings. But, on the whole, public opinion inclined to leniency. Rackham, it was agreed generally, should be punished, but not too severely.

As to More, unhappy creature—nothing but pity was felt for his sorrows, for the wreckage of his great intellect. It was widely held that he had been irresponsible from the first; that his mind had given way at that moment when Rackham revealed the dreadful secret of his son’s murder. Therefore it was impossible to blame the outraged father, whose reason had been unseated by the tragedy of his loss. There would be no punishment for More: that was swiftly decided, when he appeared before the Bench, babbling and smiling in his second childhood. As Rackham had said—he was past punishment. It only remained to seclude him with every comfort, that he might live out his life of imagined happiness. That he had sinned was true, but his sin was the outcome of excessive paternal affection, driven to crazy doings by his dreadful sufferings, during and after the war. So the scientist also went to his own place. He passed from public life into a silent existence, never again to mingle with his fellow-men.

Things were thus unsatisfactory, when, one misty November night, Aileen sat with her lover in the library of the Fryfeld Manor House. The girl, clothed in unrelieved black, only too truly emblematic of her sorrowful feelings, looked pale and thin, out-worn as she was with the incessant sufferings of many troubled nights and days. Dick was scarcely less weary and down-cast, although he feigned cheerfulness to comfort the poor child. Outside all was blurred, rainy, cold, and mournful, but within, light and warmth and colour prevailed so strongly that their influence should have heartened the young couple. But numerous newspapers on the table, on the chairs, even scattered about the carpet, hinted plainly that the reading of these had brought into being the melancholy atmosphere of the vast room. A grey atmosphere, which subdued the light, darkened the colour, chilled the warmth. In the real world they felt unreal, as if some invisible barrier shut them off from reality.

Aileen had implicitly believed, and Dick more doubtfully, that, when the tale of the tragedy was told, Edith’s name would be cleared. The newspapers assured her that this was far from being the case. Formerly credited with one crime, now credited with two, the dead woman’s reputation was now more stained than ever. Not all the waters of the wide ocean could wash out that stain: never could what had been done be undone—“Unless a miracle happens,” wailed Aileen, putting her thoughts into words.

“Eh? What?” Dick looked up from the depths of an arm-chair, wherein he had been brooding over the contrariness of things.

“Edith! Only a miracle can cleanse her reputation.”

“You may well say that, my dear. Our discoveries have only made matters worse for her. I am glad she is in her grave, poor creature.”

“So am I. But I want people to think kindly of her.”

“I wish they would, but they won’t,” responded the young man, gloomily. “Everyone thinks that the unfortunate woman is guilty—doubly guilty. How can I—how can you—how can anyone prove her innocence?”

"Yet she is innocent!” declared the girl, fiercely, “no one could have died as my darling Edith died and not be innocent. And you told her that she was.”

“I did—I did. I would have told anything, so that she might die in peace, as she did, thank God. But, in my mind, there is always the doubt!” Dick rose in a restless mood to pace the room, feverishly. “Oh, my dear, my dear, I only wish that I could silence that doubt. But what can be done? Rackham sticks to his story that Miss Danby killed his master; that she killed Slanton.”

“My poor father did not believe the first when he learned how Edith wanted to give back Roderick’s money,” said the girl, with quivering lips.

“No! But he is insane—his evidence cannot be accepted. Not to him can we look for any statement likely to prove Miss Danby innocent. I liked her for herself—I loved her for the immense kindness she showed to you. I heard her story at a moment when the most obstinate nature would speak truly. A woman with so many good qualities would not have died with a lie on her lips. I believe that she is guiltless of your brother’s murder.”

“And of Slanton’s murder?”

Dick halted, shaking his head, “There is the doubt. She may have killed the man, more or less unconsciously—the opium you know, Aileen.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous, Dick. She told her story plainly,” said the girl, angrily.

“She did, and yet—how do we know but what she mistook for truth that which was untrue? Remember the nightmare confusion of her mind at the moment. She hinted plainly that she scarcely knew what she was doing. Darling!” cried the young man, with a burst of despairing passion, “for her sake—for your sake, I wish to believe in her innocence. But the doubt—at the back of my mind, the doubt is always lurking.”

“That doubt will be done away with some day,” insisted Aileen, fanatically hopeful, so powerfully did her affection over-ride her reason. “I am sure that God will not allow Edith’s memory to be smirched.”

“It is smirched!” murmured Hustings, sadly, and resumed his prowling, longing desperately for the happening of the unexpected to adjust things.

“God will cleanse it, then. He can do anything! I have prayed, and prayed, and prayed. I know—I am positive, that my prayers will be answered.”

“I hope they will be. But”—Dick looked profoundly sceptical—“the age of miracles is past, my dear.”

Then at that very moment, to justify Aileen’s faith, to rebuke the haunting doubts of her lover, the unexpected did happen, the miracle really did occur. Ever afterwards, the young man explained to the satisfaction of himself and others, that it was an amazing coincidence. But that was never Aileen’s opinion. She held that Providence had intervened at the eleventh hour.

Hardly had the last words fallen from Dick’s lips, when the door was flung open violently, and Detective-Inspector Trant charged into the room, followed by a protesting butler. The officer still wore his overcoat and his cap, both wet with the misty rain; also his boots were muddy, his trousers splashed, as if he had been in too great a hurry to pick his steps carefully along the miry roads. He appeared to be in a state of scarcely subdued excitement, for, pushing the servant hastily out of the room, he closed the door with a loud bang, as if to relieve his feelings. All of which was very unlike the usually staid Inspector. “Trant?” queried Dick, as amazed by the appearance of the man at this late hour, as at the roughness of his en trance.

“Himself! I apologize for my—for my—for everything. Phew!” puffing out an explosive breath, Trant dropped into a chair and pulled out a large bandanna handkerchief, to wipe away the perspiration, beading his bald head. “Ouf! Phew! Ow! Ow! Ow!” he snorted and blew exhaustively. “There—there’s news.”

Before Dick could speak again, Aileen, who had risen with shining eyes, parted lips, and flushed cheeks, darted past him to lay gripping hands upon the Inspector’s shoulders. “I know—I know—it’s the miracle!”

“The miracle?” Trant stopped polishing his bald head, and stared.

“You have come to clear Edith’s character. You have learned the truth.”

“I have. But how can you guess”

“I am not guessing! I know—I know. Dick, Dick. Didn’t I tell you that my prayers would be answered. What is it—what is it?”—she shook the officer violently. “Has Rackham confessed?”

“No! He still sticks to his story.”

“But is that story true?” asked Dick, shrewdly. “Come now, Trant, you didn’t barge in here at such a late hour, and in such a hurry, to tell us that?”

“Who said I did,” grunted the Inspector. “No! I came to set Aileen’s mind at rest, once and for all.”

“About Edith?”

“Exactly. She is innocent.”

“Of course—of course,” cried the girl, impatiently, “I never thought otherwise. But who is guilty? Quick! Quick! Who is guilty?”

“Jenny Walton!”

Aileen fell back a step to cling to a tall-backed chair for support. “Jenny Walton,” she gasped, amazedly, for this was the last name she expected to hear.

“Air, Dick—give me air!” murmured the shaken girl, turning faint and white, “—air—the door—open the door.”

Hurriedly Dick strode to the narrow door opening on to the terrace and threw it wide. The misty night air floating into the heated room restored the girl somewhat with its chill damp freshness, and she allowed Dick to place her gently in a chair. Then he turned to face Trant. “Jenny Walton,” he repeated, “why should Jenny Walton kill Slanton?”

“Cast your mind back to what she told you and Aileen in this very room.”

“Yes! Yes!” the girl caught her lover’s hand, drawing him nearer to her, to feel the more his protective presence, “Slanton sent Tyson to prison. This is Jenny’s revenge. Is that it, Mr. Trant?”

“That’s it. Jenny is dead, and”

“Oh, poor girl—poor misguided girl.”

“But before she died I was sent for to hear her confession. It amounted to this—that she had strangled the man who sent her lover to gaol.”

“But how, when., where did she?”—Dick was immensely excited and stumbled over his words I mean in what—what—way?—oh go on—go on.”

“Pouf!” Trant unbuttoned his overcoat and opened it widely. “I’m hot with running. And at my age too. But I only got at the truth early this evening in the London hospital where the girl lies, and, knowing Aileen’s anxiety, I came down immediately with the good news.”

“You dear!” fully restored to herself Aileen sprang from her chair and crossed over to kiss this welcome herald of good fortune, “Oh, how can I thank you enough for saving my poor Edith’s memory from disgrace?”

“Your thanks are due to Jenny!” said the officer, patting her hand. “She was always jealous, as she confessed to me, of your love for Miss Danby. But knowing—for I told her—how you were suffering because of that dead woman’s smirched reputation, knowing also that she was dying, Jenny told me the truth. I took down her confession. She signed it and I witnessed it along with the nurse and doctor, who were in attendance. Miss Danby’s name is entirely cleared—or will be when the confession is made public.”

“Not from the suspicion that she murdered Roderick.”

“I am not so sure of that, Mr. Hustings,” rejoined Trant, argumentatively. “A great many people think that she is guilty of the first crime, because they believe on the evidence adduced that she is guilty of the second. Now that she has been proved innocent of the second, it is more than probable that they will reconsider things, and credit her with being innocent of the first. Also Miss Danby’s desire to return the money to Aileen and her father takes away any motive for her killing Roderick.”

“Just what I think!” Aileen assured the speaker, and squeezing his hand, thankfully. “You are a comfort!”

“But how did Jenny kill Slanton?” demanded Dick, brusquely.

Trant explained in his methodical way, “Slanton was hoisted on his own petard, I fancy. He employed Jenny to spy upon Miss Danby, both to gain his own ends and to provide the girl with a situation. As he had sent her lover to prison he owed her something, remember:—there lives some soul of good in all things evil, you know. Anyhow, whatever was his reason, he set the girl to watch her mistress. On that fatal night, Jenny heard Miss Danby leaving her room, and, according to instructions got up to watch her. She saw the woman go out with the lighted candle towards the insensible man lying on the lawn, saw her also drag him into the wood. Jenny followed stealthily, and when Miss Danby fled in a panic, came out of her hiding-place in the bushes to see who the man was. It was easy for her to recognize Slanton’s voice, as he babbled, crazily, about the Whispering Lane—about More and Wessbury. Finding the man who had ruined her lover at her mercy, she killed him—strangled him deliberately, as she admitted to me with great satisfaction. There was no repentance about Jenny,” ended Trant, positively. “She thought that she had done well to rid the world of a black villain, an out and out swine, as she called him.”

“Oh, Jenny, poor, foolish Jenny,” mourned Aileen, remembering the girl’s good qualities.

“Did Rackham know all this? He was on the farther side of the wall, remember.”

“No, Mr. Hustings. Jenny heard someone moving on the road and climbed up to see who it was, quite prepared to battle with any watcher. Rackham heard the noise she made and immediately jumped on his motor-cycle to fly. Then Jenny, satisfied that she was safe, returned to the house, slipping in through the back window into her bedroom.”

Aileen wrung her hands, “Oh, why didn’t she tell me all this, to save Edith?”

“Because she didn’t want Miss Danby to be saved, my dear. On the contrary, being madly jealous of the friendship between you and your friend, she was quite willing to see her mistress arrested, and tried, and hanged. Also, she had her own safety to consider.”

“Oh, no, no, Jenny wouldn’t wish to harm Edith so terribly.”

“But she did,” cried Dick, grimly, “the girl was nothing but a primitive animal, as her cold-blooded murder of Slanton shows plainly. Her one humanizing influence was her love for Tyson—her cave-mate.”

“And her love for me, Dick*.”

“There was nothing particularly human about that, I fancy, since it led her to kill Slanton and keep silent so that Miss Danby might suffer. It was the jealous passion of a cat, or a dog—a destroying, selfish love. Jenny was a cave-woman, Aileen, ignorantly evil with a spark of good in her make-up.”

The girl returned to her seat, thankful to the core of her being, but pale with emotion. “How awful father’s revenge has been,” she said in low tones. “Dr. Slanton dead—Edith dead—Jenny dead. If he had not plotted”

“If Slanton had not plotted, you mean, Aileen,” struck in the Inspector. “He was hoisted on his own petard I tell you. Roderick’s death, his own death, and the death of Miss Danby and Jenny—these were due to him alone. He brought into being the cause which produced such terrible effects.”

Dick nodded, “‘He digged a pit and fell into it himself,’ as the Bible says,” he remarked, and looked meaningly towards Aileen to emphasize his next words, “and now that everything is explained, let us have done with all these troubles and do our best to forget them.”

“It is not easy to do that,” sighed the girl, sadly, “my father”

“He is quite happy,” interrupted the Inspector, swiftly, “never trouble about your father, my dear. He will be placed in a comfortable asylum and looked after kindly. In his madness, lies his happiness. I would not cure him if I could. It would be cruel to rob him of his delusion that Roderick is alive.”

“Perhaps you are right. I hope so; oh, I hope so! Then there is Rackham?”

“Oh, I fancy he will get a year or so in gaol. There is no blood on his hands, remember. Though maybe,” went on the officer with an awkward laugh, “indirectly perhaps—h’m—he—he—well, well, well; he sinned through excess of fidelity, turning a virtue into a vice. Leave it at that. Let the Law and Rackham’s conscience deal with Rackham, my dear.”

“I think we should rather think of Jimmy, who has done so much to help,” said Dick, bluntly.

Trant chuckled. “A great lad, Jimmy. I’m looking after him. Being an old bachelor without chick or child, I shall adopt Jimmy with his father’s permission, and do my best to help him to realize his ambition.

“The Head of the C.I.D. will help also I think,” suggested Dick, smiling.

“Rather. Jimmy’s performance has earned approval in high quarters. Ouf!” the Inspector rose with a yawn, “I must ask you to put me up for the night, Mr. Hustings. I have travelled from London, and feel too tired to go on to Tarhaven. Give me a shake-down.”

“Delighted,” said Dick, cordially. “Tell Brent to see to your supper and your room. I’ll be with you shortly.”

Trant opening the door, laughed approvingly. He guessed that the lovers wished for a solitude of two. “Enjoy your golden hour, young people, and so make up for your many leaden days. My blessing on you both. Ha! Ha! Ha!” and he went out through the doorway, chuckling heartily.

When alone with Aileen, the young man folded her in his arms, “Darling, try now to forget our troubles of the past. This is the end.”

“No!” she whispered softly, “remember what Edith said when she was dying: ‘This is the beginning of something more glorious, more wonderful,’ because—you and I are together for always.”

“There is nothing more glorious than the thought that you will soon be my own dear wife.”

“And nothing more wonderful than the way in which everything has been discovered, so that we can marry in peace.”

“And all from the one word 'Whispering,’” mused Dick. “Curious how that word haunted me, until I laid its ghost. But I must close the door, or you will be getting cold. Oh, Aileen, look! The moon!”

And indeed it was the moon, now breaking in white splendour, through the grey mists which were gradually dissolving into nothingness. The lovers stood at the door, clasped in one another’s arms, watching the gradual unveiling of the night-world. Slowly the wreaths of pale vapour faded away, slowly the high winds swept the sky clear of clouds, until the moon rode triumphantly in the luminous azure of a starry sky. “It is an omen,” said Dick, gladly, “so have our troubles faded away.”

“Oh I hope so,” murmured the girl, clinging to him fondly. “Please God we shall now have peace and happiness.”

“Amen to that,” said her lover, and kissed her twice, thrice, and again.