Mr. Mool had only to hear, next, how that refutation had been obtained. A polite hint sufficed to remind Baccani of the explanation that he had promised.
"I am naturally suspicious," he began abruptly; "and I doubted the woman when I found that she kept her veil down. Besides, it was not in my way of thinking to believe that an estimable married lady could have compromised herself with a scoundrel, who had boasted that she was his mistress. I waited in the street, until the woman came out. I followed her, and saw her meet a man. The two went together to a theatre. I took my place near them. She lifted her veil as a matter of course. My suspicion of foul play was instantly confirmed. When the performance was over, I traced her back to Mr. Robert Graywell's house. He and his wife were both absent at a party. I was too indignant to wait till they came back. Under the threat of charging the wretch with stealing her mistress's clothes, I extorted from her the signed confession which you have in your hand. She was under notice to leave her place for insolent behaviour. The personation which had been intended to deceive me, was an act of revenge; planned between herself and the blackguard who had employed her to make his lie look like truth. A more shameless creature I never met with. She said to me, 'I am as tall as my mistress, and a better figure; and I've often worn her fine clothes on holiday occasions.' In your country Mr. Mool, such women--so I am told--are ducked in a pond. There is one thing more to add, before you read the confession. Mrs. Robert Graywell did imprudently send the man some money--in answer to a begging letter artfully enough written to excite her pity. A second application was refused by her husband. What followed on that, you know already."
Having read the confession, Mr. Mool was permitted to take a copy, and to make any use of it which he might think desirable. His one remaining anxiety was to hear what had become of the person who had planned the deception. "Surely," he said, "that villain has not escaped punishment?"
Baccani answered this in his own bitter way.
"My dear sir, how can you ask such a simple question? That sort of man always escapes punishment. In the last extreme of poverty his luck provides him with somebody to cheat. Common respect for Mrs. Robert Graywell closed my lips; and I was the only person acquainted with the circumstances. I wrote to our club declaring the fellow to be a cheat--and leaving it to be inferred that he cheated at cards. He knew better than to insist on my explaining myself--he resigned, and disappeared. I dare say he is living still--living in clover on some unfortunate woman. The beautiful and the good die untimely deaths. He, and his kind, last and live."
Mr. Mool had neither time nor inclination to plead in favour of the more hopeful view, which believes in the agreeable fiction called "Poetical justice." He tried to express his sense of obligation at parting. Baccani refused to listen.
"The obligation is all on my side," he said. "As I have already told you, your visit has added a bright day to my calendar. In our pilgrimage, my friend, through this world of rogues and fools, we may never meet again. Let us remember gratefully that we have met. Farewell."
So they parted.
Returning to his office, Mr. Mool attached to the copy of the confession a brief statement of the circumstances under which the Italian had become possessed of it. He then added these lines, addressed to Benjulia:--"You set the false report afloat. I leave it to your sense of duty, to decide whether you ought not to go at once to Mrs. Gallilee, and tell her that the slander which you repeated is now proved to be a lie. If you don't agree with me, I must go to Mrs. Gallilee myself. In that case please return, by the bearer, the papers which are enclosed."
The clerk instructed to deliver these documents, within the shortest possible space of time, found Mr. Mool waiting at the office, on his return. He answered his master's inquiries by producing Benjulia's reply.
The doctor's amiable humour was still in the ascendant. His success in torturing his unfortunate cook had been followed by the receipt of a telegram from his friend at Montreal, containing this satisfactory answer to his question:--"Not brain disease." With his mind now set completely at rest, his instincts as a gentleman were at full liberty to control him. "I entirely agree with you," he wrote to Mr. Mool. "I go back with your clerk; the cab will drop me at Mrs. Gallilee's house."
Mr. Mool turned to the clerk.
"Did you wait to hear if Mrs. Gallilee was at home?" he asked.
"Mrs. Gallilee was absent, sir--attending a lecture."
"What did Doctor Benjulia do?"
"Went into the house, to wait her return."
CHAPTER XLIV.
Mrs. Gallilee's page (attending to the house-door, in the footman's absence) had just shown Benjulia into the library, when there was another ring at the bell. The new visitor was Mr. Le Frank. He appeared to be in a hurry. Without any preliminary questions, he said, "Take my card to Mrs. Gallilee."
"My mistress is out, sir."
The music-master looked impatiently at the hall-clock. The hall-clock answered him by striking the half hour after five.
"Do you expect Mrs. Gallilee back soon?"
"We don't know, sir. The footman had his orders to be in waiting with the carriage, at five."
After a moment of irritable reflection, Mr. Le Frank took a letter from his pocket. "Say that I have an appointment, and am not able to wait. Give Mrs. Gallilee that letter the moment she comes in." With those directions he left the house.
The page looked at the letter. It was sealed; and, over the address, two underlined words were written:--"Private. Immediate." Mindful of visits from tradespeople, anxious to see his mistress, and provided beforehand with letters to be delivered immediately, the boy took a pecuniary view of Mr. Le Frank's errand at the house. "Another of them," he thought, "wanting his money."
As he placed the letter on the hall-table, the library door opened, and Benjulia appeared--weary already of waiting, without occupation, for Mrs. Gallilee's return.
"Is smoking allowed in the library?" he asked.
The page looked up at the giant towering over him, with the envious admiration of a short boy. He replied with a discretion beyond his years: "Would you please step into the smoking-room, sir?"
"Anybody there?"
"My master, sir."
Benjulia at once declined the invitation to the smoking-room. "Anybody else at home?" he inquired.
Miss Carmina was upstairs--the page answered. "And I think," he added, "Mr. Null is with her."
"Who's Mr. Null?"
"The doctor, sir."
Benjulia declined to disturb the doctor. He tried a third, and last question.
"Where's Zo?"
"Here!" cried a shrill voice from the upper regions. "Who are You?"
To the page's astonishment, the giant gentleman with the resonant bass voice answered this quite gravely. "I'm Benjulia," he said.
"Come up!" cried Zo.