These heirs were at present quiet; but if they discovered the register of Arthur’s marriage, Aurelian could not see what was to prevent them from putting in a claim far superior either to Marese’s or to that of any other person. Even if they could not get possession, the Courts would certainly order an immense sum to be paid to them, as compensation; and Aurelian thought himself that nothing in the world could prevent them taking the property which stood on the site of the farm, if not the Swamp. The property on the site of the farm, he thought, must go.
“Now,” said Theodore, “what is the use of destroying the American claimants en masse if this even greater danger is to be allowed to remain close at home, within easy reach of the estate, ready at any moment to burst upon us and render nugatory all our risk and labour?”
Marese was thunderstruck. For a time it seemed that their enemies were hydra-headed—no sooner was one head cut off than three sprouted up in the place. But the man was not one to be daunted. This also must be done, he said. They had not much time now to lose. It was already the middle of September, and a fortnight must be reckoned for the passage of the yacht to New York. They spent anxious days and nights considering a variety of plans. There is not time to unravel the strange mazes of the mind and trace the genesis of the idea which at last suggested itself to Theodore. It was only one degree less ingenious, and if anything still more horrible, than the infernal machine of Marese.
Theodore still continued the asylum at Stirmingham. It was an important source of income, in fact. In that asylum there were confined lunatics of all degrees of insanity, most of them having wealthy friends, and some the representatives of large properties. Among these was one more remarkable than the rest. He was the representative of a long line of lunatics, or semi-lunatics. Popular tradition accused a progenitor living two centuries before of a crime too dark to be mentioned, and believed that the lunacy of his descendants was a special punishment from heaven. This particular individual had seemed tolerably sane till he was permitted to marry—a cruel thing. He then rapidly developed his inherited tendencies, living as a married man, left more free from restraint by friends and others.
Though the owner of broad acres and lovely woodlands, he delighted in the society of tinkers, and was himself a clever hand at mending pots and kettles. He had such a fancy for tinkering that he actually promenaded the country for miles in company with gypsies, calling at the farmhouses—on his own tenants—asking for things to mend.
He was also absurdly fond of dogs, and filled the house with them—especially the large mastiff breed, of which he was particularly enraptured, till no one could approach it, and his poor wife was frightened out of her senses. Tinkering, fondling these dogs, and playing the tin whistle occupied his time. His money he scattered far and wide among the gypsies, pedlars, and tinkers, and gave enormous sums for the purebred mastiffs.
The countenance of the man expressed the most intense melancholy—that hopeless incurable vacancy of look which is seen on the features of some monkeys while in captivity. His face, and the shape of his head, in fact, much resembled a monkey’s; and the ears protruding from the side of the skull, very large and ill-formed, completed the resemblance. He had a favourite resort in one of the woods surrounding the family mansion. Through this wood there ran a stream, and a tree had fallen across it, making a natural bridge.
On this tree, over the stream, he would perch himself astride, his feet nearly in the water, and play for hours upon the tin whistle, while his troop of dogs disported in the woods around. He had a wonderful instinct of music, and really played in a marvellous manner upon this simple instrument, exhibiting skill even in the choice of the whistle—for it is difficult to find one that has a mellow tone.
The spectacle of this being, sitting on the tree trunk in the gloom of the woods, his long legs dangling down to the water, with his melancholy baboon face, performing extraordinary fantasias upon a tin whistle, could hardly be matched.
But he was as cunning as he was mad. Probably from his companions, the gypsies, he had learnt that his ancestors had all been confined in the madhouse. He had sufficient sense to foresee that the moment a son was born to his wife he would himself be confined. But, with the inherent insanity of his nature, he thought that by killing the wife or the son he should escape this danger.
So soon as ever the wretched wife’s confinement approached he slew her—and slew her in true fantastic fashion. With his tinker’s hammer he drove a nail into her head as she slept. He fled from the place, but was captured; and that was the last time Odo Lechester used his tinker’s hammer for some time to come. The dreadful deed, the sight of blood, had developed in him the homicidal tendency—he tried hard to stab his captors. In Aurelian’s asylum at Stirmingham he desperately wounded a warder.
This was the being Theodore selected for his purpose. The man had made many violent attempts to escape—he was like a wild beast in a cage, pacing to and fro.
Theodore went down to Stirmingham to his private residence, which adjoined the asylum, to prepare his tool for the deed. It was easy for him, as a physician and the owner of the establishment, to have full and private access to Odo Lechester. He had a fortnight
