The Primadonna Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  Margaret was sorry to say good-bye to Miss More and little Ida whenthe voyage was over, three days later. She was instinctively fond ofchildren, as all healthy women are, and she saw very few of them inher wandering life. It is true that she did not understand them verywell, for she had been an only child, brought up much alone, andchildren's ways are only to be learnt and understood by experience,since all children are experimentalists in life, and what often seemsto us foolishness in them is practical wisdom of the explorative kind.

  When Ida had pulled Margaret away from the railing after watching Mr.Van Torp while he was talking to himself, the singer had thoughtvery little of it; and Ida never mentioned it afterwards. As for themillionaire, he was hardly seen again, and he made no attempt topersuade Margaret to take another walk with him on deck.

  'Perhaps you would like to see my place,' he said, as he bade hergood-bye on the tender at Liverpool. 'It used to be called OxleyPaddox, but I didn't like that, so I changed the name to Torp Towers.I'm Mr. Van Torp of Torp Towers. Sounds well, don't it?'

  'Yes,' Margaret answered, biting her lip, for she wanted to laugh. 'Ithas a very lordly sound. If you bought a moor and a river in Scotland,you might call yourself the M'Torp of Glen Torp, in the same way.'

  'I see you're laughing at me,' said the millionaire, with a quietsmile of a man either above or beyond ridicule. 'But it's all a gamein a toy-shop anyway, this having a place in Europe. I buy a doll toplay with when I have time, and I can call it what I please, andsmash its head when I'm tired of it. It's my doll. It isn't any one'selse's. The Towers is in Derbyshire if you want to come.'

  Margaret did not 'want to come' to Torp Towers, even if the dollwasn't 'any one's else's.' She was sorry for any person or thingthat had the misfortune to be Mr. Van Torp's doll, and she felt herinexplicable fear of him coming upon her while he was speaking. Shebroke off the conversation by saying good-bye rather abruptly.

  'Then you won't come,' he said, in a tone of amusement.

  'Really, you are very kind, but I have so many engagements.'

  'Saturday to Monday in the season wouldn't interfere with yourengagements. However, do as you like.'

  'Thank you very much. Good-bye again.'

  She escaped, and he looked after her, with an unsatisfied expressionthat was almost wistful, and that would certainly not have been in hisface if she could have seen it.

  Griggs was beside her when she went ashore.

  'I had not much to do after all,' he said, glancing at Van Torp.

  'No,' Margaret answered, 'but please don't think it was allimagination. I may tell you some day. No,' she said again, after ashort pause, 'he did not make himself a nuisance, except that once,and now he has asked me to his place in Derbyshire.'

  'Torp Towers,' Griggs observed, with a smile.

  'Yes. I could hardly help laughing when he told me he had changed itsname.'

  'It's worth seeing,' said Griggs. 'A big old house, all full of otherpeople's ghosts.'

  'Ghosts?'

  'I mean figuratively. It's full of things that remind one of thepeople who lived there. It has one of the oldest parks in England.Lots of pheasants, too--but that cannot last long.'

  'Why not?'

  'He won't let any one shoot them! They will all die of overcrowding intwo or three years. His keepers are three men from the Society for thePrevention of Cruelty to Animals.'

  'What a mad idea!' Margaret laughed. 'Is he a Buddhist?'

  'No.' Paul Griggs knew something about Buddhism. 'Certainly not! He'seccentric. That's all.'

  They were at the pier. Half-an-hour later they were in the traintogether, and there was no one else in the carriage. Miss More andlittle Ida had disappeared directly after landing, but Margaret hadseen Mr. Van Torp get into a carriage on the window of which waspasted the label of the rich and great: 'Reserved.' She could have hadthe same privilege if she had chosen to ask for it or pay for it, butit irritated her that he should treat himself like a superior being.Everything he did either irritated her or frightened her, and shefound herself constantly thinking of him and wishing that he would getout at the first station. Griggs was silent too, and Margaret thoughthe really might have taken some trouble to amuse her.

  She had Lushington's book on her knee, for she had found it lessinteresting than she had expected, and was rather ashamed of nothaving finished it before meeting him, since it had been given to her.She thought he might come down as far as Rugby to meet her, and shewas quite willing that he should find her with it in her hand. Aliterary man is always supposed to be flattered at finding a friendreading his last production, as if he did not know that the friend hasprobably grabbed the volume with undignified haste the instant he wason the horizon, with the intention of being discovered deep in it. Yetsuch little friendly frauds are sweet compared with the extremes ofbrutal frankness to which our dearest friends sometimes think it theirduty to go with us, for our own good.

  After a time Griggs spoke to her, and she was glad to hear his voice.She had grown to like him during the voyage, even more than she hadever thought probable. She had even gone so far as to wonder whether,if he had been twenty-five years younger, he might not have been theone man she had ever met whom she might care to marry, and she hadlaughed at the involved terms of the hypothesis as soon as she thoughtof it. Griggs had never been married, but elderly people rememberedthat there had been some romantic tale about his youth, when he hadbeen an unknown young writer struggling for life as a newspapercorrespondent.

  'You saw the notice of Miss Bamberger's death, I suppose,' he said,turning his grey eyes to hers.

  He had not alluded to the subject during the voyage.

  'Yes,' Margaret answered, wondering why he broached it now.

  'The notice said that she died of heart failure, from shock,' Griggscontinued. 'I should like to know what you think about it, as you werewith her when she died. Have you any idea that she may have died ofanything else?'

  'No.' Margaret was surprised. 'The doctor said it was that.'

  'I know. I only wanted to have your own impression. I believe thatwhen people die of heart failure in that way, they often makedesperate efforts to explain what has happened, and go on trying totalk when they can only make inarticulate sounds. Do you remember ifit was at all like that?'

  'Not at all,' Margaret said. 'She whispered the last words she spoke,but they were quite distinct. Then she drew three or four deepbreaths, and all at once I saw that she was dead, and I called thedoctor from the next room.'

  'I suppose that might be heart failure,' said Griggs thoughtfully.'You are quite sure that you thought it was only that, are you not?'

  'Only what?' Margaret asked with growing surprise.

  'Only fright, or the result of having been half-suffocated in thecrowd.'

  'Yes, I think I am sure. What do you mean? Why do you insist so much?'

  'It's of no use to tell other people,' said Griggs, 'but you may justas well know. I found her lying in a heap behind a door, where therecould not have been much of a crowd.'

  'Perhaps she had taken refuge there, to save herself,' Margaretsuggested.

  'Possibly. But there was another thing. When I got home I found thatthere was a little blood on the palm of my hand. It was the hand I hadput under her waist when I lifted her.'

  'Do you mean to say you think she was wounded?' Margaret asked,opening her eyes wide.

  'There was blood on the inside of my hand,' Griggs answered, 'and Ihad no scratch to account for it. I know quite well that it was on thehand that I put under her waist--a little above the waist, just in themiddle of her back.'

  'But it would have been seen afterwards.'

  'On the dark red silk she wore? Not if there was very little of it.The doctor never thought of looking for such a wound. Why should he?He had not the slightest reason for suspecting that the poor girl hadbeen murdered.'

  'Murdered?'

  Margaret looked hard at Griggs, and then she suddenly shu
ddered fromhead to foot. She had never before had such a sensation; it was likea shock from an electric current at the instant when the contact ismade, not strong enough to hurt, but yet very disagreeable. She feltit at the moment when her mind connected what Griggs was saying withthe dying girl's last words, 'he did it'; and with little Ida's lookof horror when she had watched Mr. Van Torp's lips while he wastalking to himself on the boat-deck of the _Leofric_; and again, withthe physical fear of the man that always came over her when she hadbeen near him for a little while. When she spoke to Griggs again thetone of her voice had changed.

  'Please tell me how it could have been done,' she said.

  'Easily enough. A steel bodkin six or seven inches long, or even astrong hat-pin. It would be only a question of strength.'

  Margaret remembered Mr. Van Torp's coarse hands, and shuddered again.

  'How awful!' she exclaimed.

  'One would bleed to death internally before long,' Griggs said.

  'Are you sure?'

  'Yes. That is the reason why the three-cornered blade for duellingswords was introduced in France thirty years ago. Before that, menoften fought with ordinary foils filed to a point, and there were manydeaths from internal hemorrhage.'

  'What odd things you always know! That would be just like being runthrough with a bodkin, then?'

  'Very much the same.'

  'But it would have been found out afterwards,' Margaret said, 'and thepapers would have been full of it.'

  'That does not follow,' Griggs answered. 'The girl was an only child,and her mother had been divorced and married again. She lived alonewith her father, and he probably was told the truth. But IsidoreBamberger is not the man to spread out his troubles before the publicin the newspapers. On the contrary, if he found out that his daughterhad been killed--supposing that she was--he probably made up his mindat once that the world should not know it till he had caught themurderer. So he sent for the best detective in America, put the matterin his hands, and inserted a notice of his daughter's death thatagreed with what the doctor had said. That would be the detective'sadvice, I'm sure, and probably Van Torp approved of it.'

  'Mr. Van Torp? Do you think he was told about it? Why?'

  'First, because Bamberger is Van Torp's banker, broker, figure-head,and general representative on earth,' answered Griggs. 'Secondly,because Van Torp was engaged to marry the girl.'

  'The engagement was broken off,' Margaret said.

  'How do you know that?' asked Griggs quickly.

  'Mr. Van Torp told me, on the steamer. They had broken it off thatvery day, and were going to let it be known the next morning. He toldme so, that afternoon when I walked with him.'

  'Really!'

  Griggs was a little surprised, but as he did not connect Van Torp withthe possibility that Miss Bamberger had been murdered, his thoughtsdid not dwell on the broken engagement.

  'Why don't you try to find out the truth?' Margaret asked ratheranxiously. 'You know so many people everywhere--you have so muchexperience.'

  'I never had much taste for detective work,' answered the literaryman, 'and besides, this is none of my business. But Bamberger and VanTorp are probably both of them aware by this time that I found thegirl and carried her to the manager's room, and when they are readyto ask me what I know, or what I remember, the detective theyare employing will suddenly appear to me in the shape of a newacquaintance in some out-of-the-way place, who will go to workscientifically to make me talk to him. He will very likely have alittle theory of his own, to the effect that since it was I whobrought Miss Bamberger to Schreiermeyer's room, it was probably I whokilled her, for some mysterious reason!'

  'Shall you tell him about the drop of blood on your hand?'

  'Without the slightest hesitation. But not until I am asked, and Ishall be very glad if you will not speak of it.'

  'I won't,' Margaret said; 'but I wonder why you have told me if youmean to keep it a secret!'

  The veteran man of letters turned his sad grey eyes to hers, while hislips smiled.

  'The world is not all bad,' he said. 'All men are not liars, and allwomen do not betray confidence.'

  'It's very good to hear a man like you say that,' Margaret answered.'It means something.'

  'Yes,' assented Griggs thoughtfully. 'It means a great deal to me tobe sure of it, now that most of my life is lived.'

  'Were you unhappy when you were young?'

  She asked the question as a woman sometimes does who feels herselfstrongly drawn to a man much older than she. Griggs did not answer atonce, and when he spoke his voice was unusually grave, and his eyeslooked far away.

  'A great misfortune happened to me,' he said. 'A great misfortune,' herepeated slowly, after a pause, and his tone and look told Margarethow great that calamity had been better than a score of big words.

  'Forgive me,' Margaret said softly; 'I should have known.'

  'No,' Griggs answered after a moment. 'You could not have known. Ithappened very long ago, perhaps ten years before you were born.'

  Again he turned his sad grey eyes to hers, but no smile lingered nowabout the rather stern mouth. The two looked at each other quietlyfor five or six seconds, and that may seem a long time. When Margaretturned away from the elderly man's more enduring gaze, both felt thatthere was a bond of sympathy between them which neither had quiteacknowledged till then. There was silence after that, and Margaretlooked out of the window, while her hand unconsciously played with thebook on her knee, lifting the cover a little and letting it fall againand again.

  Suddenly she turned to Griggs once more and held the book out to himwith a smile.

  'I'm not an autograph-hunter,' she said, 'but will you write somethingon the fly-leaf? Just a word or two, without your name, if you like.Do you think I'm very sentimental?'

  She smiled again, and he took the book from her and produced a pencil.

  'It's a book I shall not throw away,' she went on, 'because the manwho wrote it is a great friend of mine, and I have everything he hasever written. So, as I shall keep it, I want it to remind me that youand I grew to know each other better on this voyage.'

  It occurred to the veteran that while this was complimentary tohimself it was not altogether promising for Lushington, who was theold friend in question. A woman who loves a man does not usually askanother to write a line in that man's book. Griggs set the point ofthe pencil on the fly-leaf as if he were going to write; but then hehesitated, looked up, glanced at Margaret, and at last leaned back inthe seat, as if in deep thought.

  'I didn't mean to give you so much trouble,' Margaret said, stillsmiling. 'I thought it must be so easy for a famous author like you towrite half-a-dozen words!'

  'A "sentiment" you mean!' Griggs laughed rather contemptuously, andthen was grave again.

  'No!' Margaret said, a little disappointed. 'You did not understandme. Don't write anything at all. Give me back the book.'

  She held out her hand for it; but as if he had just made up his mind,he put his pencil to the paper again, and wrote four words in a smallclear hand. She leaned forwards a little to see what he was writing.

  'You know enough Latin to read that,' he said, as he gave the bookback to her.

  She read the words aloud, with a puzzled expression.

  '"Credo in resurrectionem mortuorum."' She looked at him for someexplanation.

  'Yes,' he said, answering her unspoken question. '"I believe in theresurrection of the dead."'

  'It means something especial to you--is that it?'

  'Yes.' His eyes were very sad again as they met hers.

  'My voice?' she asked. 'Some one--who sang like me? Who died?'

  'Long before you were born,' he answered gently.

  There was another little pause before she spoke again, for she wastouched.

  'Thank you,' she said. 'Thank you for writing that.'