“Exactly so!” Carlyon said.
Chapter IV
The room which Carlyon softly entered at the head of the staircase was a wainscoted apartment, hung with dimity curtains and containing a four-poster bed which stood out into the room. Under the patchwork quilt, and propped up by pillows, lay a young man, his head a little fallen to one side. One lock of his lank, dark hair was tumbled across his brow; his lips, which were almost bloodless, were slightly parted, and he was breathing short and fast. The light cast by a branch of candles on a near-by table showed that his countenance had assumed a ghastly pallor. He seemed to be sleeping.
A grizzled man, wearing the conventional frock coat, but not the wig, of a doctor of medicine, was seated by the bedside, but he looked up when he heard the door open, and at once rose and went to meet Carlyon. “I thought you would come, my lord,” he said, in a lowered tone. “Upon my soul, this is a bad business—a very bad business!”
“As you say. How is he?”
“I can do nothing for him. The knife entered the stomach. He is sinking, and I do not expect him to outlive the night.”
“Is he in possession of his faculties?”
The doctor smiled grimly. “Quite enough so to be casting about in his mind for some means of doing you an injury, my lord.”
Carlyon glanced toward the bed. “I hope he may not have hit upon the only way in which he can accomplish it.”
“He has done so, but you need feel no alarm on that score.”
“He has done so?”
“Oh, yes! But no one but Hitchin and myself has heard what he has to say. When I found what he would be at I took care to send the nurse about her business. If this had to happen it is as well it has happened where he is too well known to have the power of working mischief.”
“What are you talking of?”
The doctor looked at him under his brows. “No, it would not occur to you, I suppose, my lord. Mr. Cheviot, however, knows well that he can best hurt you through your brothers. He has told me that Mr. Nicholas set out to murder bun, and at your instigation. He would like to think that he could bring Mr. Nick to the scaffold.”
For a moment Carlyon did not speak. The light, flickering in a little draft, cast his features into relief against the wall. The doctor watched a muscle twitch beside his strong mouth. Then he said, “Let him think it. I can trust Hitchin. I shall hope to give his thoughts another direction. Can he go through a ceremony of marriage?”
The doctor’s brows rose quickly. “So you are at that, are you?” he muttered. “Yes, but whom will you find, my lord? It has been in my mind, but I see no way of accomplishing it. There is too little time left.”
“I have brought a lady with me who is willing to marry him. She is belowstairs, with Presteign.”
The doctor stared at him, a look of appreciative amusement creeping into his eyes. “You have, eh? My lord, after all the years I have known you, ay, and after the scrapes I’ve seen you in, and the bones I’ve set for you, I wonder that you should still have the power to surprise me! But will he consent?”
“Yes, for you could never bring him to believe that I do not covet his estate. He has suspected me ever since I first broached the matter to him of nourishing some evil design for which his marriage was to serve as a mask.”
He stopped, for Eustace Cheviot had stirred and opened his eyes. The doctor stepped up to the bed and felt his pulse.
“Damn you, take your hands off me!” Eustace whispered. “I know I am done for!”
Carlyon walked forward to the other side of the bed and stood there looking down at him. The clouded eyes regarded him stupidly for a moment and seemed gradually to regain intelligence. An expression of malevolence crossed the sharp features. Eustace uttered in a faint voice, “I wish I had married to spite you, by God, I do! You thought you could gammon me, but I wasn’t as green as you thought, Carlyon!”
“Were you not?” Carlyon said evenly.
“You had some precious scheme to throw dust in the eyes of the world. I don’t know the whole, but I fancy I was to be married so that it might appear that you had no designs upon Highnoons. And then you would have disposed of me, would you not? Ah, but I am more up to smoke than you thought for, my dear cousin, and I would have willed Highnoons away from you within an hour of leaving the church. You thought I had not sense enough to make my will speedily, but I had!”
“You do yourself harm by talking so much, Mr. Cheviot,” interposed the doctor.
A spasm of pain twisted Cheviot’s face; his eyes closed for an instant, but opened again and fixed themselves once more on Carlyon’s face. “Your precious Nick was too quick for you!” he sneered.
“Too quick for you as well, Eustace.”
Eustace moved his head restlessly on the pillow. “Yes, by God!” he muttered. “You’ll have it all! Damn you, damn you!”
“Yes, I shall have it all.”
“Ay, but I’ll turn it to dust and ashes for you! You will have to see Nick stand his trial! He murdered me, do you hear? He meant to murder me!”
“I may have to see him stand his trial, but his credit is better than yours, Cousin, and the only witness to your quarrel is devoted to my interest. I shall see Nick acquitted.”
The calm certainty with which he spoke had its effect. The dying man gave a groan and made a convulsive attempt to drag himself up on his elbow.
“For God’s sake, my lord, take care what you are about!” the doctor muttered, restraining him.
“But he will have to stand his trial!” Eustace gasped. “Your pride won’t stomach that, whatever the event!”
“No,” Carlyon agreed. “Both my schemes and yours have miscarried. You would see your estate safe from my machinations; I would save Nicky from yours, if I could. Well, I do not value Highnoons above Nicky. I will let it go.”
Cheviot glared at him, his befogged brain only half comprehending what was said to him, clinging obstinately to its one idea. “How? How?” he panted.
“You may be married, here and now, and bequeath Highnoons to your wife.”
Cheviot frowned, as though trying to concentrate his wits. “How will that serve you?” he asked suspiciously.
“It will serve me.”
“And you will not step into my shoes?”
“I shall not step into your shoes.”
“I’ll do it!” Cheviot said, plucking at the sheet. “Yes, I’ll do it! I don’t care about Nick. I’ll die happy to think I’ve foiled you!”
Carlyon nodded, and walked to the door. The doctor followed him, out onto the landing. “You will not do it, my lord!”
“I shall do it. It is what he wishes.”
“He does not understand above half of what you would be at! In all the years of my practice I never met a creature so wholly devoid of good! Well I know what patience you have used toward him, what forbearance! It seems to make him hate you the more. He is a vile fellow! But this—! No, it will not do, my lord!”
“It will do very well. He does not know why I do it, but it is what he wants, and since I have no purpose in my head but to escape an inheritance I do not desire, I shall not sleep the less sound for having in some sort deceived him.”
“Ay, but will it answer, my lord?” the doctor urged. “To marry him out of hand now might not prove of service to Mr. Nicholas. It must seem—”
“Oh, I am not thinking of Nicky!” Carlyon said. “He stands in no danger. But it will be better for the lady if it is not generally known that she sees Cheviot for the first time this evening. I think that may be contrived.”
“Good God!” said the doctor weakly. “Is it so indeed? You go quite beyond me, my lord! How will you contrive it?”
“Oh, a long-standing betrothal, perhaps—kept secret.”
“Kept secret!” exploded Greenlaw. “And why?”