19000 Pound Part 46

As he lost consciousness and the power of standing, he knew what would happen; the weight of his whole body would drag his neck on to the keen edge. Long before he could recover consciousness, all would be over.

Then he expelled a deep breath and inhaled the gas.

When Gerald's copy of the _Star_ was brought up to him, a triple head-lined column caught his eye. It was captioned:

STRANGE DEATH

OF A WELL KNOWN

CITY DENTIST

and it went on to describe the ghastly details of the find in the dentist's room.

It was put down as a pure accident. The boy's evidence about the sharpening of the knives, the extraordinary position in which the body was found, were chronicled; there was not the breath of a suspicion of suicide.

Perhaps that soul which had taken its flight to another world knew naught of the happenings in this--would never know that the insurance office paid over the policy moneys, and that the wife and child the dead man had thought so much of benefited by the application of a golden salve in their time of grief.

And yet--who knows?

CHAPTER x.x.xI

MOON BLINDNESS

"No need to shave this off now."

Gerald was standing next morning in front of his dressing-gla.s.s, and referred to his pointed beard.

He had intended shaving as a disguise in case of any bother with the now dead dentist. He had not seen what could arise--what the dentist would dare to do--but the detective's failure to go back for his prisoner would naturally excite suspicion in the dentist's breast.

Now--well, that breast was cold.

"There is no doubt," thought Gerald, "the doctor and the dentist between them did for Josh Todd. Both are now done for. So far as Josh Todd's murder is concerned, that is avenged. A restoration of the money"--he had the bank notes in front of him as he spoke--"to its rightful owner will end the whole thing.

"And," he thought, with a smile of pleasure playing round his mouth, "it will end up like a story too, with a marriage with Tessie--and, please G.o.d, a live happy ever after."

He inserted the notes in an envelope. Then in another, and another, and ultimately in a piece of brown paper, which he tied round with twine.

He went to the head of the stairs, and called out to the landlady, would she lend him a needle and cotton?

The maid of all work came up with it, and Gerald set about using the same.

He took off his coat and waistcoat, and ripped the lining of the latter from the cloth; pus.h.i.+ng the envelope of money up, he sewed the lining down again.

"That's on my left side," said Gerald, "over the heart. I put that waistcoat on now"--he did so--"and it shall never leave me till I hand the money over to old Depew. I'll sleep in that waistcoat, and never, night or day, shall it be out of my touch."

He looked up the trains and boat sailings, booked his pa.s.sage, and arranged to step on board a liner the next day on his way to America--on his way to the girl he loved.

The next day he settled with his landlady. Then he took an omnibus to Euston, sitting on the top of it with his bag on his knees, for his exchequer was running low, and it did not admit of cab hire. By tram he went to the dock, and stepped aboard the vessel which was to bear him to the land of the free.

He had gone to the expense in town of booking both berths in his second cla.s.s cabin. It left him almost without a pound in his pocket, but he had too much in value about him to run any risk.

He had provided against any tampering with the bolts or locks of his cabin door by purchasing one of the bell door alarms which fix into the floor, and at the slightest pressure of the door rings a loud alarm.

He did not fear for a moment that any attempt to rob him would be made; he simply took no risks.

Traveling second cla.s.s, no one would suppose him in possession of nineteen thousand pounds, and as he had made up his mind that the package should never leave his breast, he felt quite safe.

On board the boat, after she sailed, he kept very much to his cabin. He did not make many acquaintances. He occasionally chatted and smoked with a poor looking, club-footed old man, who was a fellow-pa.s.senger.

He was moved to this by the extreme sensitiveness of the man; indeed, a veiled pity prompted him to take notice of the only creature on the s.h.i.+p who seemed to be without an acquaintance.

He was surprised when he found from conversation what a mine of information he had struck; that his companion was a well-informed, educated, and apparently wealthy man.

"Yes," the other said, "I suppose you are surprised to find me traveling second cla.s.s. I am extremely sensitive. I know with this hideous deformity, a hump back and a club foot, that people talk of me in pitying tones behind my back.

"I don't want their pity," he continued fiercely; "I only want to be let alone, unnoticed. With you, it is different. You are the only man on this s.h.i.+p who looks at me without conveying an impression that you would like to pat me on the back and say, 'Poor old fellow.' d.a.m.n their pity!"

Gerald laughed heartily. The man was speaking the truth, he knew.

His almost toothless gums caused chin and nose to come together in a manner strikingly suggestive of Punch, and he spoke with a squeak.

His nose even was deformed, and a swelling on one side of it below the bridge added to the curious appearance of the face. A bald head, with a fringe round it of snow white hair, completed the grotesqueness.

In the more crowded second cla.s.s cabin, the man escaped notice better than he would have done in the saloon.

So it came about that during the voyage Gerald and the club-footed hunchback pa.s.sed many hours together.

Gerald learned much, for there was scarcely a subject on which his companion was not well posted.

The nights were particularly pleasant, for the moon was at the full, and, well wrapped up, they usually spent the after dinner time on deck, while the majority of the pa.s.sengers were more sociably engaged in the way of games or music.

At one meal the subject of moon blindness had cropped up, and many curious anecdotes were told anent it--anecdotes more or less truthful, after the manner of s.h.i.+pboard stories.

Afterwards, on deck, Gerald's companion continued the conversation. At table he rarely spoke. He said:

"It is quite true. Moon blindness is a terrible thing. The great relief about it is the knowledge that the sight comes back.

"I remember, many years ago, abroad, being foolish enough to insist on sleeping on an open deck. It was, of course, terribly hot weather, or even I--young as I was then--should never have been so foolish. I lay on my back on the deck--on the back is the only comfortable way in which to lie on a hard couch, by the by--and when I woke I could not see my hand before me.

"Fright! G.o.d bless me! I believe I went mad."

"Enough to make you."