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“Old McCarthy doesn’t mind,” said he. “Don’t you be afraid of him. We’lldo what we like, and I’ll answer for it that he won’t object.” Once onlyI went, and when I left, after a dull and gross evening, my host wasstretched dead drunk upon the sofa. After that I gave the excuse of acourse of study, and spent my spare hours alone in my own room.
One point upon which I was anxious to gain information was as to howlong these proceedings had been going on. When did St. James assert hishold over Dr. McCarthy? From neither of them could I learn how long mycolleague had been in his present situation. One or two leadingquestions upon my part were eluded or ignored in a manner so marked thatit was easy to see that they wer
e both of them as eager to conceal thepoint as I was to know it. But at last one evening I had the chance of achat with Mrs. Carter, the matron—for the Doctor was a widower—and fromher I got the information which I wanted. It needed no questioning toget at her knowledge, for she was so full of indignation that she shookwith passion as she spoke of it, and raised her hands into the air inthe earnestness of her denunciation, as she described the grievanceswhich she had against my colleague.
“It was three years ago, Mr. Weld, that he first darkened thisdoorstep,” she cried. “Three bitter years they have been to me. Theschool had fifty boys then. Now it has twenty-two. That’s what he hasdone for us in three years. In another three there won’t be one. And theDoctor, that angel of patience, you see how he treats him, though he isnot fit to lace his boots for him. If it wasn’t for the Doctor, you maybe sure that I wouldn’t stay an hour under the same roof with such aman, and so I told him to his own face, Mr. Weld. If the Doctor wouldonly pack him about his business—but I know that I am saying more than Ishould!” She stopped herself with an effort, and spoke no more upon thesubject. She had remembered that I was almost a stranger in the school,and she feared that she had been indiscreet.
There were one or two very singular points about my colleague. The chiefone was that he rarely took any exercise. There was a playing-fieldwithin the college grounds, and that was his farthest point. If the boyswent out, it was I or Dr. McCarthy who accompanied them. St. James gaveas a reason for this that he had injured his knee some years before, andthat walking was painful to him. For my own part I put it down to purelaziness upon his part, for he was of an obese, heavy temperament.Twice, however, I saw him from my window stealing out of the groundslate at night, and the second time I watched him return in the grey ofthe morning and slink in through an open window. These furtiveexcursions were never alluded to, but they exposed the hollowness of hisstory about his knee, and they increased the dislike and distrust whichI had of the man. His nature seemed to be vicious to the core.
Another point, small but suggestive, was that he hardly ever during themonths that I was at Willow Lea House received any letters, and on thosefew occasions they were obviously tradesmen’s bills. I am an earlyriser, and used every morning to pick my own correspondence out of thebundle upon the hall table. I could judge therefore how few were everthere for Mr. Theophilus St. James. There seemed to me to be somethingpeculiarly ominous in this. What sort of a man could he be who duringthirty years of life had never made a single friend, high or low, whocared to continue to keep in touch with him? And yet the sinister factremained that the head master not only tolerated, but was even intimatewith him. More than once on entering a room I have found them talkingconfidentially together, and they would walk arm in arm in deepconversation up and down the garden paths. So curious did I become toknow what the tie was which bound them, that I found it gradually pushout my other interests and become the main purpose of my life. In schooland out of school, at meals and at play, I was perpetually engaged inwatching Dr. Phelps McCarthy and Mr. Theophilus St. James, and inendeavouring to solve the mystery which surrounded them.
But, unfortunately, my curiosity was a little too open. I had not theart to conceal the suspicions which I felt about the relations whichexisted between these two men and the nature of the hold which the oneappeared to have over the other. It may have been my manner of watchingthem, it may have been some indiscreet question, but it is certain thatI showed too clearly what I felt. One night I was conscious that theeyes of Theophilus St. James were fixed upon me in a surly and menacingstare. I had a foreboding of evil, and I was not surprised when Dr.McCarthy called me next morning into his study.
“I am very sorry, Mr. Weld,” said he, “but I am afraid that I shall becompelled to dispense with your services.”
“Perhaps you would give me some reason for dismissing me,” I answered,for I was conscious of having done my duties to the best of my power,and knew well that only one reason could be given.
“I have no fault to find with you,” said he, and the colour came to hischeeks.
“You send me away at the suggestion of my colleague.”
His eyes turned away from mine.
“We will not discuss the question, Mr. Weld. It is impossible for me todiscuss it. In justice to you, I will give you the strongestrecommendation for your next situation. I can say no more. I hope thatyou will continue your duties here until you have found a placeelsewhere.”
My whole soul rose against the injustice of it, and yet I had no appealand no redress. I could only bow and leave the room, with a bitter senseof ill-usage at my heart.
My first instinct was to pack my boxes and leave the house. But the headmaster had given me permission to remain until I had found anothersituation. I was sure that St. James desired me to go, and that was astrong reason why I should stay. If my presence annoyed him, I shouldgive him as much of it as I could. I had begun to hate him and to longto have my revenge upon him. If he had a hold over our principal, mightnot I in turn obtain one over him? It was a sign of weakness that heshould be so afraid of my curiosity. He would not resent it so much ifhe had not something to fear from it. I entered my name once more uponthe books of the agents, but meanwhile I continued to fulfil my dutiesat Willow Lea House, and so it came about that I was present at thedénouement of this singular situation.
During that week—for it was only a week before the crisis came—I was inthe habit of going down each evening, after the work of the day wasdone, to inquire about my new arrangements. One night, it was a cold andwindy evening in March, I had just stepped out from the hall door when astrange sight met my eyes. A man was crouching before one of the windowsof the house. His knees were bent and his eyes were fixed upon the smallline of light between the curtain and the sash. The window threw asquare of brightness in front of it, and in the middle of this the darkshadow of this ominous visitor showed clear and hard. It was but for aninstant that I saw him, for he glanced up and was off in a momentthrough the shrubbery. I could hear the patter of his feet as he randown the road, until it died away in the distance.
It was evidently my duty to turn back and to tell Dr. McCarthy what Ihad seen. I found him in his study. I had expected him to be disturbedat such an incident, but I was not prepared for the state of panic intowhich he fell. He leaned back in his chair, white and gasping, like onewho has received a mortal blow.
“Which window, Mr. Weld?” he asked, wiping his forehead. “Which windowwas it?”
“The next to the dining-room—Mr. St. James’s window.”
“Dear me! Dear me! This is, indeed, unfortunate! A man looking throughMr. St. James’s window!” He wrung his hands like a man who is at hiswits’ end what to do.
“I shall be passing the police-station, sir. Would you wish me tomention the matter?”
“No, no,” he cried, suddenly, mastering his extreme agitation; “I haveno doubt that it was some poor tramp who intended to beg. I attach noimportance to the incident—none at all. Don’t let me detain you, Mr.Weld, if you wish to go out.”
I left him sitting in his study with reassuring words upon his lips, butwith horror upon his face. My heart was heavy for my little employer asI started off once more for town. As I looked back from the gate at thesquare of light which marked the window of my colleague, I suddenly sawthe black outline of Dr. McCarthy’s figure passing against the lamp. Hehad hastened from his study then to tell St. James what he had heard.What was the meaning of it all, this atmosphere of mystery, thisinexplicable terror, these confidences between two such dissimilar men?I thought and thought as I walked, but do what I would I could not hitupon any adequate conclusion. I little knew how near I was to thesolution of the problem.
It was very late—nearly twelve o’clock—when I returned, and the lightswere all out save one in the Doctor’s study. The black, gloomy houseloomed before me as I walked up the drive, its sombre bulk broken onlyby the one glimmering point of brightness. I let myself
in with mylatch-key, and was about to enter my own room when my attention wasarrested by a short, sharp cry like that of a man in pain. I stood andlistened, my hand upon the handle of my door.
All was silent in the house save for a distant murmur of voices whichcame, I knew, from the Doctor’s room. I stole quietly down the corridorin that direction. The sound resolved itself now into two voices, therough bullying tones of St. James and the lower tone of the Doctor, theone apparently insisting and the other arguing and pleading. Four thinlines of light in the blackness showed me the door of the Doctor’s room,and step by step I drew nearer to it in the darkness. St. James’s voicewithin rose louder and louder, and his words now came plainly to my ear.
“I’ll have every pound of it. If you won’t give it me I’ll take it. Doyou hear?”
Dr. McCarthy’s reply was inaudible, but the angry voice broke in again.
“Leave you destitute! I leave you this little goldmine of a school, andthat’s enough for one old man, is it not? How am I to set up inAustralia without money? Answer me that!”
Again the Doctor said something in a soothing voice, but his answer onlyroused his companion to a higher pitch of fury.
