The Goddess: a Demon
Copyright© 2024 by Richard Marsh
Chapter 7: The Suspicions of Mr. Morley
The newcomer was a man apparently about sixty years of age, short, and grey-haired, with old-fashioned, neatly-trimmed side whiskers. He was dressed entirely in black, even to black kid gloves; his hat he carried in his hand. He seemed to be in a state of considerable agitation, and stood looking from one to the other of us as if he was endeavouring to make up his mind as to who or what we were. Hume recognized him at once. He went striding towards him from across the room.
“Morley, you had better come with me. It is to me you wish to speak, not to this gentleman.”
I interposed.
“He asked for Mr. Ferguson. I am Mr. Ferguson. It therefore seems that it is to me that he wishes to speak.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! You’re a stranger to him; I tell you it’s a mistake. You know me, Morley, don’t you?”
The old gentleman looked at Hume with eyes which seemed half dazed.
“Yes, sir; oh yes. You’re Dr. Hume. I know you very well.”
“You hear? Stand aside!”
“I shall not stand aside. And, Hume, take my strong advice and don’t attempt to interfere with any visitor of mine. You hear me?”
“I hear, but I shall not pay the least attention. Morley, I forbid you to say a word in this gentleman’s presence. You have no right to speak of your master’s private affairs in the presence of strangers. I am his friend; I will safeguard his interests. I tell you that by not keeping a strict watch over your tongue you may do him a serious mischief.”
“Very good, Hume. Evidently to remonstrate with you is to waste one’s breath. I will try another way.” Taking him up in my arms I carried him towards the door. “I am going to put you outside my room, and, before you attempt to enter it again, I trust that you will have learnt at least the rudiments of decent manners. Out you go!”
And out he went. Depositing him on the floor in the corridor, I locked the door in his face. He banged against it with his fist.
“You shall pay for this!”
“Very good; render your account. I will render you such moneys as are due.”
“Morley, I forbid you to say a word to him at your peril.”
I turned to my visitor.
“I beg, Mr. Morley, that you will take a seat. Pray do not heed our excitable friend. Just now he can hardly be said to have the full control of his senses—as you yourself perceive. As you remarked, I am John Ferguson, the friend of Mr. Edwin Lawrence. You, I take it, are in the service of his brother, Mr. Philip.”
Mr. Morley’s calmness had not perceptibly increased. He seemed impressed by the way in which I had handled Hume; and, also, disposed to be influenced by the doctor’s express commands to hold his tongue; he was like a man between two stools.
“Yes, sir, I’m in Mr. Philip’s service; but I think that perhaps the doctor’s right, and I oughtn’t to talk about my master.”
“Possibly, Mr. Morley; but you have spoken of him already. You have accused him of murder.”
“No, sir, not that!”
“Just now, in the presence of Dr. Hume and myself, you expressed your belief that Mr. Philip had killed Mr. Edwin.”
“Oh no, sir, not that; I didn’t go so far as that. I didn’t mean it if I did.”
“What you meant is another question; that is what you said. I may tell you, Mr. Morley, that I am not of your opinion. I do not believe that Mr. Philip had any hand whatever in his brother’s death.”
“No, sir? I—I’m glad to hear it.”
“Very soon you will receive from his own lips an explanation which will blow all your doubts away. I believe that he will clear the whole thing up at once, if you will take me to him.”
Mr. Morley’s jaw dropped open.
“Take you to him? But that—that’s just it. I don’t know where he is. Isn’t he—here?”
He looked about him as if he half expected to discover Philip Lawrence hidden behind a curtain or under a table.
“Do I understand you to mean that your master has not returned all night?”
“Yes, sir; that’s what I do mean, and that’s what makes me so—concerned. He’s a gentleman of regular habits—most regular; and I’ve never known him to stop out all night before without giving me warning.”
I felt that, in that case, he must indeed be a gentleman of most regular habits.
“Where does Mr. Philip Lawrence live?”
“In Arlington Street; that’s his London address.”
“When did he go out?”
“After midnight, in—in a towering rage.”
“In a towering rage? With whom?”
“Well, sir,”—Mr. Morley came closer; he cast an anxious glance around him; he dropped his voice—”I’m not a talkative man, not as a rule, as any one who knows me will tell you; but I’ve got something to say which I feel I must say to some one, though you heard what Dr. Hume said. But, perhaps, sir, as you’re Mr. Edwin’s friend, you’re Mr. Philip’s too.”
“Mr. Morley, in making any statement to me, you will be at least as safe as if you made it to Dr. Hume. I tell you that I believe your master’s hands are clean. To prove it, we shall have to establish the truth. If you have anything to say which will go to make the darkness light, say it, like a man, before it’s too late.”
“You won’t use it to do him a disservice? And you won’t say that I talked about him in a way I didn’t ought to have done?”
“I will do neither of these things.”
“Well, sir, I like your looks; you look like the kind of gentleman one can trust, and I flatter myself I’m a pretty good judge of faces; and—and the way you handled Dr. Hume was”—he coughed behind his hand—”queer. I’ll make a clean breast of it.”
The old gentleman’s hesitation had its amusing side; I was conscious that something very unusual had happened to throw him, to such a degree, off his mental balance.
“That’s right, Mr. Morley; we shall soon arrive at an understanding if we are frank with one another. Sit down.”
He sat down on the edge of a chair. His hat he placed beside him on the floor, crown uppermost.
“Well, sir”—with his gloved fingers he stroked his chin, still regarding me with an air of dubitation—”I’m afraid that Mr. Edwin was not all that he ought to have been.”
“I am afraid that something similar could be said of all of us.”
“It was in money matters chiefly, though there were other things as well; but in money matters he was most irregular—quite unlike Mr. Philip. Mr. Philip has let him have thousands and thousands of pounds; what he did with it was a mystery. They quarrelled dreadfully.”
“Brothers will quarrel, Mr. Morley. It’s a way they have.”
The old gentleman shook his head.
“Ah, but the fault was Mr. Edwin’s. Mr. Philip is hot-tempered, but Mr. Edwin was always in the wrong.”
Leaning towards me, Mr. Morley whispered, under cover of his hand, “Once Mr. Philip thrashed him—broke his stick across his back, he did; Mr. Edwin must have been black and blue with bruises. Mr. Philip’s very quick when he’s roused, and he’s a better man than his brother. He was very sorry afterwards for what he had done—dear me! how sorry he was. He went to his brother and he asked him to forgive him, and Mr. Edwin did forgive him; I expect he got a good deal more money out of Mr. Philip, or he never would have done. He was unforgiving enough, was Mr. Edwin, unless it paid him to be otherwise; he’d wait for years for a chance of returning, with good thumping interest, what he thought was an injury; it was the only thing he ever did return with interest.”
The expression on Mr. Morley’s face as he said this did not itself suggest the charity which forgiveth all things.
“So it went on, for soon they were quarrelling again. But lately it has been worse than ever.”
Looking anxiously about him, Mr. Morley again resorted to the cover of his hand.
“There’s been—there’s been some trouble about some bills. Mr. Edwin’s been putting some bills on the market which weren’t quite what they ought to have been, and getting money on them. I’m afraid he’s been making an unauthorized use of his brother’s name.”
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