The Return

a while, to recover our breath, to see what happens next. And if⁠—as I don’t believe for a moment⁠—Why, in that case I heard the other day of a most excellent man⁠—Grosser, of Wimpole Street; nerves. He would be absorbed. He’ll bottle you in spirit, Lawford. We’ll have him down quietly. You see? But there won’t be any necessity. Oh no. By then light will have come. We shall remember. What I mean is this.” He crossed his legs and pushed out his lips. “We are on quaky ground; and it’s absolutely essential that you keep cool, and trust. I am yours, heart and soul⁠—you know that. I own frankly, at first I was shaken. And I have, I confess, been very cunning. But first, faith, then evidence to bolster it up. The faith was absolute”⁠—he placed one firm hand on Lawford’s knee⁠—“why, I cannot explain; but it was. The evidence is convincing. But there are others to think of. The shock, the incredibleness, the consequences; we must not scan too closely. Think with; never against: and bang go all the arguments. Your wife, poor dear, believes; but of course, of course, she is horribly⁠—” he broke off; “of course she is shaken, you old simpleton! Time will heal all that. Time will wear out the mask. Time will tire out this detestable physical witchcraft. The mind, the self’s the thing. Old fogey though I may seem for saying it⁠—that must be kept unsmirched. We won’t go wearily over the painful subject again. You told me last night, dear old friend, that you were absolutely alone at Widderstone. That is enough. But here we have visible facts, tangible effects, and there must have been a definite reason and a cause for them. I believe in the devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe he and they are powerless⁠—in the long run. They⁠—what shall we say?⁠—have surrendered their intrinsicality. You can just go through evil, as you can go through a sewer, and come out on the other side too. A loathsome process too. But there⁠—we are not speaking of any such monstrosities, and even if we were, you and I with God’s help would just tire them out. And that ally gone, our poor dear old Mrs. Grundy will at once capitulate. Eh? Eh?”

Through all this long and arduous harangue, consciousness, like the gradual light of dawn, had been flooding that other brain. And the face that now confronted Mr. Bethany, though with his feeble unaided sight he could only very obscurely discern it, was vigilant and keen, in every sharp-cut hungry feature.

A rather prolonged silence followed, the visitor peering mutely. The black eyes nearly closed, the face turned slowly towards the window, saw burnt-out candle, comprehensive glass.

“Yes, yes,” he said; “I’ll send for Simon at once.”

“Good,” said Mr. Bethany, and more doubtfully repeated “good.” “Now there’s only one thing left,” he went on cheerfully. “I have jotted down a few test questions here; they are questions no one on this earth could answer but you, Lawford. They are merely for external proofs. You won’t, you can’t, mistake my motive. We cannot foretell or foresee what need may arise for just such jog-trot primitive evidence. I propose that you now answer them here, in writing.”

Lawford stood up and walked to the looking-glass, and paused. He put his hand to his head. “Yes,” he said, “of course; it’s a rattling good move. I’m not quite awake; myself, I mean. I’ll do it now.” He took out a pencil case and tore another leaf from his pocketbook. “What are they?”

Mr. Bethany rang the bell. Sheila herself answered it. She stood on the threshold and looked across through a shaft of autumnal sunshine at her husband, and her husband with a quiet strange smile looked across through the sunshine at his wife. Mr. Bethany waited in vain.

“I am just going to put the arch-impostor through his credentials,” he said tartly. “Now then, Lawford!” He read out the questions, one by one, from his crafty little list, pursing his lips between each; and one by one, Lawford, seated at the dressing-table, fluently scribbled his answers. Then question and answer were rigorously compared by Mr. Bethany, with small white head bent close and spectacles poised upon the powerful nose, and signed and dated, and passed to Mrs. Lawford without a word.

Mrs. Lawford read question and answer where she stood, in complete silence. She looked up. “Many of these questions I don’t know the answers to myself,” she said.

“It is immaterial,” said Mr. Bethany.

“One answer is⁠—is inaccurate.”

“Yes, yes, quite so: due to a mistake in a letter from myself.”

Mrs. Lawford read quietly on, folded the papers, and held them out between finger and thumb. “The⁠—handwriting⁠ ⁠…” she remarked very softly.

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” said Mr. Bethany warmly; “all the general look and run of the thing different, but every real essential feature unchanged. Now into the envelope. And now a little wax?”

Mrs. Lawford stood waiting. “There’s a green piece of sealing-wax,” almost drawled the quiet voice, “in the top right drawer of the nest in the study, which old James gave me the Christmas before last.” He glanced with lowered eyelids at his wife’s flushed cheek. Their eyes met.

“Thank you,” she said.

When she returned the vicar was sitting in a chair, leaning his chin on the knobbed handle of his umbrella. He rose and lit a taper for her with a match from a little green pot on the table. And Mrs. Lawford, with trembling fingers, sealed the letter, as he directed, with his own seal.

“There!” he said triumphantly, “how many more such brilliant lawyers, I wonder, lie dormant in the Church? And who shall keep this?⁠ ⁠… Why, all three, of course.” He went on without pausing. “Some little drawer now, secret and undetectable, with a lock.” Just such a little drawer that locked itself with a spring lay by chance in the looking-glass. There the letter was hidden. And Mr. Bethany looked