It was the first time she had ever called me by my Christian name. The mere sound of the word made me unspeakably happy.
Yet she waved me away. ‘Must I go?’ I asked, quivering.
‘Yes, yes: you must go. I cannot stand it. I must think this thing out, undisturbed. It is a very great crisis.’
That afternoon and evening, by some unhappy chance, I was fully engaged in work at the hospital. Late at night a letter arrived for me. I glanced at it in dismay. It bore the Basingstoke postmark. But, to my alarm and surprise, it was in Hilda’s hand. What could this change portend? I opened it, all tremulous.
‘Dear Hubert, – ’ I gave a sigh of relief. It was no longer ‘Dear Dr Cumberledge’ now, but ‘Hubert’. That was something gained, at any rate. I read on with a beating heart. What had Hilda to say to me?
‘Dear Hubert , – By the time this reaches you, I shall be far away, irrevocably far, from London. With deep regret, with fierce searchings of spirit, I have come to the conclusion that, for the Purpose I have in view, it would be better for me at once to leave Nathaniel’s. Where I go, or what I mean to do, I do not wish to tell you. Of your charity, I pray, refrain from asking me. I am aware that your kindness and generosity deserve better recognition. But, like Sebastian himself, I am the slave of my Purpose. I have lived for it all these years, and it is still very dear to me. To tell you my plans would interfere with that end. Do not, therefore, suppose I am insensible to your goodness… Dear Hubert, spare me – I dare not say more, lest I say too much. I dare not trust myself. But one thing I must say. I am flying from you quite as much as from Sebastian. Flying from my own heart, quite as much as from my enemy. Someday, perhaps, if I accomplish my object, I may tell you all. Meanwhile, I can only beg of you of your kindness to trust me. We shall not meet again, I fear, for years. But I shall never forget you – you, the kind counsellor, who have half turned me aside from my life’s Purpose. One word more, and I should falter. – In very great haste, and amid much disturbance, yours ever affectionately and gratefully,
‘Hilda.’
It was a hurried scrawl in pencil, as if written in a train. I felt utterly dejected. Was Hilda, then, leaving England?
Rousing myself after some minutes, I went straight to Sebastian’s rooms, and told him in brief terms that Nurse Wade had disappeared at a moment’s notice, and had sent a note to tell me so.
He looked up from his work, and scanned me hard, as was his wont. ‘That is well,’ he said at last, his eyes glowing deep; ‘she was getting too great a hold on you, that young woman!’
‘She retains that hold upon me, sir,’ I answered curtly.
‘You are making a grave mistake in life, my dear Cumberledge,’ he went on, in his old genial tone, which I had almost forgotten. ‘Before you go further, and entangle yourself more deeply, I think it is only right that I should undeceive you as to this girl’s true position. She is passing under a false name, and she comes of a tainted stock… Nurse Wade, as she chooses to call herself, is a daughter of the notorious murderer, Yorke-Bannerman.’
My mind leapt back to the incident of the broken basin. Yorke-Bannerman’s name had profoundly moved her. Then I thought of Hilda’s face. Murderers, I said to myself, do not beget such daughters as that. Not even accidental murderers, like my poor friend Le Geyt. I saw at once the primâ facie evidence was strongly against her. But I had faith in her still. I drew myself up firmly, and stared him back full in the face. ‘I do not believe it,’ I answered, shortly.
‘You do not believe it? I tell you it is so. The girl herself as good as acknowledged it to me.’
I spoke slowly and distinctly. ‘Dr Sebastian,’ I said, confronting him, ‘let us be quite clear with one another. I have found you out. I know how you tried to poison that lady. To poison her with bacilli which I detected. I cannot trust your word; I cannot trust your inferences. Either she is not Yorke-Bannerman’s daughter at all, or else… Yorke-Bannerman was not a murderer…’ I watched his face closely. Conviction leaped upon me. ‘And someone else was,’ I went on. ‘I might put a name to him.’
With a stern white face, he rose and opened the door. He pointed to it slowly. ‘This hospital is not big enough for you and me abreast,’ he said, with cold politeness. ‘One or other of us must go. Which, I leave to your good sense to determine.’
Even at that moment of detection and disgrace, in one man’s eyes, at least, Sebastian retained his full measure of dignity.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, I would like to thank Ion Mills, Claire Watts, Clare Quinlivan, Ellie Lavender, Jenna Gordon and everybody at Oldcastle Books for their help while I was compiling this book and their hard work in bringing it into print. Thanks also to Elsa Mathern for the splendid cover design and to Jayne Lewis and Steven Mair for the proofreading and copy-editing skills which enabled them to pick up mistakes in my original manuscript which would have otherwise gone uncorrected. I am grateful, as always, to my family for their encouragement – in particular to my sister Lucinda and to my mother Eileen, to whom the book is dedicated. Thanks also to my family in Germany – Wolfgang, Lorna and Milena Lüers. Finally, I would not have been able to complete this anthology –
