It would not be just to so much as hint at a latent insanity in these men’s minds, for it would partly absolve them from responsibility, and would dispose their judges to regard their crimes leniently. Certainly no one, if asked to do so, could have pointed out two keener men of the world than these. Yet, somehow, despite one’s reluctance to afford them the shadow of an excuse, there does creep in the conviction that such a ghastly conception could only be formed in a brain lacking the moral organs, if such an expression may be used, in a brain unbalanced with natural human sympathy.
Marese’s father, old Sternhold, had certainly been mad at one period of his career. His mother, Lucia, had exhibited a vanity so overweening, and a temper so intense, that at times it resembled lunacy. It may have been that, along with the mental powers of calculation and invention which distinguished old Romy and Sternhold, Marese had also inherited the mental weakness of Sternhold and Lucia.
Theodore had shown a taste for extraordinary studies usually avoided by healthy-minded men. His father, Aurelian, had passed the whole of his time with insane patients, and it is said that too much contact with mad people reacts upon the sane. He had early initiated his son into the mysteries of that sad science of the mind which deals with its deficiencies. The son’s youth had been passed in constant intercourse with those harmless and, so to say, reasonable lunatics who are to be met with in the homes and at the dinner-tables of medical men, and whose partial sanity and occasional singular flashes of unnatural intelligence are perhaps more calculated to affect the minds of others than the vagaries of the downright mad.
In one short sentence, this terrible crime, which was looming over Marese and Theodore, was nothing less than the deliberate intention to destroy the whole of the claimants to the estate at once. How it originated it is difficult to imagine, but it did. It might perhaps be partly traced to the injunction in Aurelian’s papers to take the weapons out of the hands of the companies; or partly to the oft-expressed wish of Marese’s, after the Roman emperor, that all the claimants had but one neck, so that he might cut it. The said emperor has much to answer for.
The announced gathering of the claimants at Stirmingham certainly seemed to bring them all within the reach of the fowler’s net, if he could but cast it aright. Marese and Theodore had half-formed ideas of blowing the whole company into the air as they sat at council in the Sternhold Hall on New Year’s Day, something after the fashion of Guy Fawkes, but with a deadlier compound than he had at his disposal—nitroglycerine or dynamite; especially the first might be trusted to do the work much more effectually than gunpowder, which was also more difficult to conceal on account of its bulk.
It will barely be believed that these two men, in the height of the nineteenth century, calmly examined the vault under that famous hall, in order to see if it was fitted for the purpose. This hall or assembly-room had been finished about the time that the agitation commenced over the heir to the estate, just before Sternhold had married, when the Corporation heaped flattery upon him. It had been named after him.
It was a fine room, not too large, and yet of sufficient size to seat an audience. The object was to afford a concert-room for dramatic and theatrical performances, and also for balls. As the site was valuable, and every particle of space had to be utilised in the centre of this mighty city, it had been built over vaults, which were intended for bonded warehouses; but partly on account of the high rent asked, and partly because of the dampness of the cellars—the site was the very centre of the old Swamp—had never been occupied. The access was bad, and there was no place for a display or advertisement, which was another reason why the cellars had not let. There was a certain amount of propriety in holding what was to be called “The Grand Centennial Family Council” in this hall, built upon the centre of the ancient Swamp, and named after the founder of the city.
Marese and Theodore, in disguise, examined the vaults, under the pretence of being agents for London merchants desirous of opening business in Stirmingham. There was hardly any necessity for this precaution, for it was so many years since they had openly resided in the place that few would have recognised them.
To their great surprise, these vaults, whose gloomy darkness they explored by the light of lanterns, extended in one vast cavern, under the whole of the hall. Instead of a series of cellars, there was one huge cavern. This was occasioned by the flooring not being supported upon brick arches, as would have been architecturally preferable, but upon timber posts, or pillars. The place had, in fact, been put up hastily, and the vaults were never completed. The timber pillars were placed in regular order, and it had been intended to build brick partitions; but as no one seemed to care to occupy the cellars, this had never been done. The floor was extremely damp, and the whole appearance of the place repulsive. Snails, toads, and slimy reptiles crawled about, and this under the very stage above, upon which music,
