Rufin's Legacy: a theosophical romance

Front matter

EUFIN'S LEGACY RUFIN'S LEGACY A TIIEOSOPHICAL ROMANCE BY W. GERRARE HonSon HUTCHINSON & CO. 25, PATERNOSTER SQUARE [All rights reserved.] IB-Ut'catton to HE_NTRY OLIVER ("0. H.') A FEARLESS MAN CONTEXTS. PAol Introduction. — The Story as my Grandfather knew it . 1 CHAP. I. The End of Rufin Petrovitch . . . .1.5 II. A Lost Chance ....... 25 III. A Reason for the Crime 35 IV. A Promise 42 V. Rufin's Legacy 44 VI. The Story of the Girl Xenia .... 58 VII. Concernino the Study of Human Nature . . 65 VIII. The Comedy of Every-day Life . . . .73 IX. News from St. Petersburg ..... 89 X. A Strange Fellow-traveller . . . . 10U XI. "What Dreams may Come 104 XII. The Mysterious Disappearance of Frida Vian . 113 XIII. Three Months After 119 XIV. A Clue 134 XV. The Compact with Xenia 144 XVI. Madame at Work 1.51 XVII.

Detective Hooper Delivers his Opinion . . 159 XVIII. Me. Caradoc Morgan, Occultist .... 16S XIX. Bevan brings us News CONTENTS. VIII PAG _ CHAP. XX. Xenia's Plan 18s' XXI. Betrayed ]9(i XXII. Alone with the Mad and the Dead . . • 200 XXIII. Extracts from the Diaey of Frank Vian . • 209 XXIV. Detective Hooper's New Ally . . ■ ■ 213 XXV. Watching a Detective . . . . ■ .218 XXVI. Xenia Goes Over to the Enemy . 229 XXVII. Amateur Detectives at Work . . - • "43 XXVIII. Intelligent Policeman X. .... 253 XXIX. The Death of Xenia 259 XXX. A Voice from the Dead ..... 263 XXXI. Frida Suspected 269 XXXII. A Sudden Reappearance 274 XXXHI.-'The Chase . . 282 XXXIV. The Pursuer Pursued 286 XXXV. The End of Madame Felician .... 290 XXXVI. Explaining Frida's Disappearance . . 301 XXXVII. Conclusion

Introduction

. THE STORY AS MY GRANDFATHER KNEW IT. My grandfather could tell a good story. His younger days as a commercial traveller were passed on the road at a time when the incidents for story making were plentiful. The coach, the roadside inns, the gossip of the country towns, the flint, steel, and tinder box, all appealed to the curiosity of the younger generation, and gave a glamour to the weird, mysterious life he appeared to us to have led. First, there were his stock stories, chiefly anecdotal ; his ghost stories, always personal ; his half-and-half stories, chiefly episodal, and these last were of the greatest interest to us as we grew up into manhood. There was a certain indefiniteness about them which excited curiosity, and after listening to one of them you felt that my grandfather was personally more intimately connected with the story than his version admitted. u So it happened that when his anecdotal stories bored us, and his ghost stories provoked our laughter, his episodal stories continued to entertain us.

Therefore we remember them better than the others, and as I was always a most interested listener and a pertinent ques tioner, I knew the stories even better than he, with his now failing memory, knows them himself, for he always kept something back, sometimes one episode, sometimes another, and it was only by listening to ever-varied repetitions that one got the whole of the story ; and then generally one suspected that there might be a sequel, or some keynote which he would not divulge. I wonder if my nonagenarian grandparent, when he reads my amplified version of his story, will recognise it ? He has refused to acknowledge my sequel, whether rightly or wrongly the reader must judge. " Many years ago," for so he invariably commenced, " when I was coaching through the Midlands frequently, I got to be well acquainted at an inn at Daventry with the proprietor and his wife.

They had no children of their own, but a young girl lived with them, and to her they were warmly attached. She was a favourite with all the coaching customers too, but so far as I could learn was not very much of a favourite with the inhabitants of the town. Sometimes I used to sleep at this hostelry, in fact I frequently did _o when working in that district, for I was more com-

INTRODUCTION.

. 3 fortably housed there than at Towcester, Chipping- Norton, or Banbury ; and if I could, by walking or driving, stay at Daventry, instead of at either of these other places, I would do so. The girl, who was named Mary — after her I named your mother — was a favourite of mine, but I could never learn who she was. My host one night in his cups informed me that he had adopted her when quite a child ; his wife answered some advertisement in a London newspaper, the only condition being that the girl should be called Mary, and adopt his wife's maiden name and pass as their niece. She was a pretty girl, of a good humoured disposition, and could take a joke and give the impertinent a sharp answer. So time went on, and on one visit, from out of my stock of patterns, I let her choose a ring. I was married then, and on that occasion your grandmother was with me at Daventry.

Strange to say she chose a most unsaleable ring. It was of inferior gold, with a genuine cast gold pattern and inscription let into the base metal ; it was produced as some sort of allegorical memento of the Black Brunswicker, and we had anticipated some good lines when my house produced it immediately after the battle of Waterloo, but it did not sell ; I had had the pattern with me for years. Those we sent out were all returned and made up again, so I think I am right in saying that this was the only ring of that size and pattern ever worn. It was an awkward ring to wear too ; it would turn round, so that the pattern and inscription were in the palm of the hand, and the ring showed towards the back of the hand like a plain gold or wedding-ring. Well, Mary Gurten always wore this ring, and I noticed that sometimes when she grasped anything, an impression of this ring would be left in the object of which she took hold.

I have had the impression — a faint one, it is true — on my own hand several times. " It appears that there used to visit at this inn an elderly maiden lady named Hescroft. Why she came, or what she did, I do not know, but she took a fancy to Mary Gurten, and said that she would make her her heiress. Mary was always with this lady, waited upon her whilst she stayed in Daventry, and upon one or two occasions they had gone into the country together for a few weeks. I did not like Mary so well after she had made the acquaintance of this female. I may have been suspicious without cause, but I fancied that she wanted the girl for no good. Mary got quite a constrained air when in the presence of her new friend, and often acted strangely ; the old landlady would have it that the girl was bewitched, and upon my honour, I could have believed the truth of it at that time.

I arrived at the inn one night to find Miss Hescroft there, and Mary very glum. The old inn-keeper was ill a-bed with gout, and the serving-wench was a clumsy good for-nothing piece of baggage. If it had not been for

INTRODUCTION.

. the good work of the housewife, we should have fared badly. Miss Hescroft went early to her room. I and a fellow-traveller had the parlour to ourselves. This man was the delivery clerk of a large publishing house, which like too many in that day had used to send round a canvasser for subscribers to a book to come out in ten volumes at a guinea a volume and issue twenty volumes. My fellow-traveller had the thank less job of delivering the books and collecting the money, and as the work was now at its seventeenth volume and no prospect of the end being reached, he had a lively time of it. But he was a persevering fellow, and although he was very sore against the can vasser, who misrepresented the book when he obtained the subscribers, he made the best of his work, and learned a great deal of the history of the richer county families.

He was getting an old man, and I gave him from my samples a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles which my brother Jim used to make, and this opened the old book-man's heart to me. " He told me amongst other things that this Miss Hescroft was to be suspected, that she had been a governess or companion in one of the families in the neighbourhood, but that she had also been in foreign parts and belonged to the stage. She was known to drink and smoke, and he believed she chewed. In one part of the country where she was well known, the common people declared she had the evil eye, and she was known to bring ill-luck upon all who befriended her. She was very cruel, that my informant could vouch for, and if she was not actually dishonest, it was only because no one was able to find out her misdeeds. I told him that I had heard that she meant to take Mary Gurten permanently under her charge, and he said that it was quite true, and we might be sure that she had already done so.

I asked when he first made her acquaintance ; he replied, ' Seven years ago this very night, and I will tell you how.' We filled our glasses with more toddy and drew nearer to the fire, smoking our long clay pipes ; my friend puffed silently away7, listening to the regular tread of someone pacing the floor overhead. ' That is her room,' and he tossed his head. I told him I could not say7. He was sure of it. ' I would rather not sleep upstairs to-night, if — if, well, if we can spin yarns, and get a shake-down on the settle towards morning, if we want it. Well, seven years ago this very night I walked from Chip ping Norton to Shipston-on-Stour. I hadn't the coach fare and I did not object to a walk ; it was dark before I got to the Rollwright stones, and I fancied, as I passed them, that all was not quite as it should be.

When I got to the Red Lion at Long Compton, and sat me down for a rest and draught of home-brewed, there came a fellow in from Shipston, and, 'pon honour, he seemed much to resemble the devil. I asked him the state of the roads, and he replied that they were

INTRODUCTION.

. bad for walking, but on horseback passable. I could not stay at Long Compton, where I had no credit, and I expected money at Shipston, so I started off on foot at about nine o'clock. It's a lonely 'unked road from Compton to Shipston. May be you know it — not a house for miles, the road skirting a park for a mile or more ; then crossing the river and along a lonely stretch till you reach the mill three-quarters of a mile from Ship ston. There was nobody going my way7 ; the waggon had gone two hours before or I might have gone alongside that for company. I walked up that great hill and got fairly along the road skirting the park, when I saw standing on the side of the road a woman's figure with her hands clasped to her breast. I went to her, of course, and could see no cause for her position ; I spoke to her, but she did not answer, and when I looked closely into her eyes I saw that they were fixed and glassy, and she was as immovable as the Rollreich chieftain.

She was well and warmly clothed, and I did not doubt she was in some sort of trance, from which in a short time she would recover ; as I know people are subject to humours which set them rigid as a corpse, when their distemper is upon them. " ' I stayed by her for the best part of an hour, but she showed no sign of life, and I thought it would be better to go back to Compton for assistance, and then again my want of money urged me to go to Ships ton, so I turned towards that town, and before I had taken many steps a shriek and a yell caused me to look round ; the woman had vanished, but ringing in my ears were the words, " Seven years more ! " I dared not retrace my steps, but with the words echoing in my ears continued my way. A few days after that I learned that a Mr. Ryatt had died at the Hall near Compton that very day, and when I visited the Hall some months afterwards I found a Miss Hescroft there as companion to the young ladies.

This Miss Hescroft was the woman I had seen on the Compton road, but so far as I could gather from the servants she was not subject to any indisposition. Hush ! do you hear her walking now ? ' We listened, and the pacing to and fro in the room overhead was as distinct as before. We talked together a short time, and then I fell asleep in my chair. The servant turned me out about halfpast five, and after an early breakfast I walked off towards Towcester. When I got back to the inn at night, I was informed that Miss Hescroft had been found dead in her bed that morning, and that Mary was to receive all her goods. I left the inn then for a few days, working Moreton, Stratford, Shipston, Chipping Norton, and other places, returning to Daventry the day of the inquest. There was much talk in the parlour that night, and one of the jury, < Old Gammer Wilson,' as they called him, told us a strange bit of history. When he was a young man and a sailor, he said, he was walking with a ship-

INTRODUCTION.

. mate from Bristol to Southampton to get a new berth, and in the New Forest somewhere, not far from Lynd hurst, they found a nice little brown-haired girl ; she was crying, and they pacified her as best they could, but she was too young to say who she was or where she came from. His butty, who seems to have been of a jocular mood, and a bit of a rascal to boot, proposed that they should tattoo some mark on the girl, so that if in after years they wanted help they could claim to have saved her life and get her assistance. Well, they did so ; on the child's shoulder they put a small anchor and ' W. & B.,' their initials. The girl was left with an innkeeper in the nearest vil lage, and her guardians were found at Lymington. Well, the two scamps received money, and Gammer Wilson never saw the girl again, for she ran away from her guardian with a strange woman who had been living at Lyme Regis, and who, according to common talk, had exercised an undue influence over the child, and induced it to obey her in everything.

Gammer Wilson had gone with the other jurymen to examine the body of Miss Hescroft, and had noticed tattoo marks, which he swore upon all that was sacred and much that was profane, were the identical marks he and his shipmate had put on to the child in the New Forest. Opinion was very much divided, for Gammer Wilson was not so truthful as he should have been, and when the book-man told how he met the woman seven years before, and gave it as his opinion that she was in compact with the devil, who had only called for his own, he was told that he might be a better man. The townspeople, although they did not like her when living, would not have a word said against her now that she had gone. I do not venture my opinion ; you must judge for yourselves, and perhaps what you have yet to hear will help you to a just conclusion.

Mary Gurten from that day was a changed girl ; in fact, she became a wilful, headstrong woman, would not be remonstrated with, and finding that she could not rule over her adopted parents, ran away from them. " She had been a graceful girl, but she was now very clumsy, uncouth, and forward ; she aped all the man ners of the dead woman whose little property she had inherited, and she was as disagreeable as she had before been attractive. After she left Daventry I did not see her for some months, when one day as I got down from the coach in Birmingham I caught sight of her, and we interchanged a few courtesies. I told her that the old people at Daventry would be pleased to hear from her, but she said she should not write, that she was only on a visit to the town, and declined to give her address ; but I noticed that she still wore my ring, and when I pointed this out to her she laughingly replied, that at her death it should be sent to me.

INTRODUCTION.

. 11 " In Birmingham I always boarded at a private house, and generally had a special room in it, but this time I had to take another room on the top floor. This house was modern built, but it has now been demolished and a large factory stands in its place. It was my custom to carry a large clasp knife with which I could secure a bedroom door which had only a droplatch as a fastening. In the Birmingham lodging the bedroom door had a proper brass mortise lock and good bolts, but I noticed a large clothes-closet or cupboard in the room, and when I made a close inspection of this, I found a cupboard in its upper half ; this inner cupboard would be about five feet high by four broad and three deep, a large commodious store-room for the housekeeper ; it was empty, but at the top was a large glazed window, one big pane of glass, very dirty, but by rubbing it I found that it looked out upon a dead wall a few feet distant.

A light into a closed cupboard seemed to me superfluous, especially when it could not be used for ventilation and looked out upon an old dead wall, which wall had certainly been built prior to the erection of the house. " I utilised the closet for my travelling cloak and heavy clothing, and when I shut it at night, following the habit to which I was accustomed, I stuck my knife firmly into the wood just above the drop latch. And it was well that I did so. " Soon after midnight I was awakened by strange noises : someone seemed to be scuffling outside my door. I listened but heard no voices ; reaching from my bed for the flint and tinder, I soon managed to obtain a light, and with the candle in my hand walked stealthily towards the door ; as I did so the noise ceased, but turning round I noticed that my knife, stuck in the cupboard door, had been raised by someone trying to lift the latch.

I hid the light beneath the slop-pail, and stood near the cupboard door, my fingers loosely holding my knife. Soon the latch was carefully raised and with great strength, my knife being moved in the hard wood, but seeing that I had forced it deeply in, no leverage from the other side which would not break or bend the latch-lift could displace my knife. "'Ah, you are safe there till morning,' said I to myself, and having examined the fastenings of the door with my candle, and seeing that they were strong and good, I wished my prisoner good night, blew out my candle, and went to bed, where I slept until morning without further disturbance. " I called up the man-servant first thing, and told him to get assistance ; he came back with a couple of constables and a watchman, and then I went to the door to get my prisoner.

The door opened : we found no one. A constable unfastened a small door at the back and a man fell out upon him ; we dragged him to the room and found him dead. Well, there was a great

INTRODUCTION.

. commotion. The body was identified as that of a rich brass worker of the town, and a careful examination of the closet showed that the window had been removed from the outside and carefully put back in its place. There were marks of a ladder on the ground outside, and these cleared me from suspicion. One thing I noticed, which until this day I have never divulged. When we examined very closely the clothing of the corpse, I saw where upon the collar and stiff stock the fingers of some murderer or accomplice had tightly grasped, and looking more closely into these marks I saw clearly the indentations caused by the pressure of a ring on the third finger — the ring which I had given to Mary Gurten and of which no duplicate existed. "The murderer was never discovered, and from that time to this I have never seen Mary Gurten.

Any thing more I could tell you would only be conjecture, and such you can supply better than I can myself. To me the affair is a mystery : I can only vouch for the truth of the facts. This I do know. That night I should have been murdered but for my good clasp knife and Providence directing me to fasten the door of the clothes closet. I have many times in my not uneventful life been most mercifully preserved from a violent death, but those occasions have nothing to do with my story, which is now told." " You ought to tell us on what other occasions your life was attempted ; we might connect them with this," said my brother. " No, no," my grandfather answered ; " there is a good deal belongs to everything. We never get the whole history of anything, and we never shall, until death, perhaps, may reveal to some of us the why and wherefore of our existence ; then the mystery of being with its multifarious purposes may be comprehended."

Chapter I. The End Of Rufin Petrovitch

" Here is your passport, sir." " Thanks ! " At last I was free to leave St. Petersburg, my busi ness finished, my portmanteau packed, and passport returned. After having been for so long a time ham pered with irksome regulations, pestered by the police, and delayed by the dilatoriness of procrastinating officialdom, how pleasant it would be to kick the snows of Russia from off one's feet and leave the country for ever ! St. Petersburg has its attractions, and I felt in clined, after having been held so long against my will, to stay a few days longer for my own pleasure. Russia should not be so quickly free of me now that I was free to go ! My pass was available for fourteen days, and I could reach the frontier within thirty-six hours. A knock at my door. No doubt my-friend, Rufin Petrovitch Osooroff, come to pay me a farewell visit.

By no means a bad fellow, for a Russian, is Rufin ; young, tall, handsome, playful as a child in trivial matters, generous and frank as a friend, agreeable and entertaining as a companion, but a thorough martinet in official business. I was as pleased of his assistance as delighted with his company. " Then you leave us, Vasily Vasily7evitch ? " " As soon as it shall please me, Rufin Petrovitch." "You hurry to your sweetheart in England, eh, Vassy ? " " No, she is travelling with her relatives; is now at Rome. Nevertheless, with good luck, I will marry before I again visit Russia." " I trust you may be happy. You must not think life here is so bad generally as you yourself have ex perienced. If you will stay a few days, we may enjoy ourselves together now that our differences are at an end."

" We have never had any differences, Ruse. If you are at liberty nothing will give me greater pleasure than to spend a few days with you." " Then let it be so. Excuse me that I am always talking business, but I want you to oblige me person ally, by seeking out in London a man whose address I will give to you." " It has nothing to do with that official department you serve?" "Nothing whatever. I thought you might be leaving to-morrow, so I brought all the particulars with me." He unfastened the large official portfolio without which he was seldom found, and took therefrom a sealed letter, addressed to Mr. Caradoc Morgan, 13, Little Fisher Street, London, S.W. " That is your introduction." " Thank you." I took the letter and put it into a pocket-book already well stuffed with papers, relative to the busi ness I had to transact in London, as I passed through on my way home.

" And now the business ? " I asked. " It is very simple. I want you to write and tell me how y7ou are received by Mr. Morgan." " What more ? " "Nothing." " You are joking ? Or have you prepared a pleasant surprise for me ? " " Neither. The letter contains a question. Mr. Morgan may give you the simple answer I require, or he may not say anything ; either way, I want to know the result of your visit." " Then I must see Mr. Caradoc Morgan personally. By-the-by7e, there may be more than one, a junior, for instance. Will it matter to whom the letter is given ? " "Most materially. I had not thought of the C possibility or probability, perhaps, of another Caradoc Morgan. A friend of mine who is away from St. Petersburg just now, has a photograph of the gentle man to whom the letter is to be delivered.

I can get to his rooms ; they are some distance from here and in an unfashionable quarter, but we can drive there this evening and see it. Later we can go together to a masquerade in the Highborn Club. Does this please vou ? " " Certainly, Rufin Petrovitch ; but are you not in a hurry ? To do so much in one evening will surely exhaust you." " It is much ; but, with your permission, I will leave my7 portfolio here until to-morrow ; then I need not go home, for at the masquerade we can take dominoes, and save the fatigue of dressing." " Agreed." We drank tea and chatted until nine o'clock ; then, taking a close carriage at the hotel, we drove towards the Neva. " We shall soon be in a quarter in which I would rather not be recognised," said Rufin ; and he drew down the window blinds. A few minutes later we had reached a deserted boule vard, and Rufin stopped the carriage, got out, paid the coachman, and gave an address which I did not catch.

It was half an hour before the carriage again stopped. The windows, covered with frost, hardly permitted one to see what kind of streets we were passing, and Rufin talked blithely away. The bye-lane in which the carriage stopped was deserted, nevertheless my companion pulled his fur cap low down over his brow and turned up the immense rough collar of his coat. The door keeper must have recognised him at once, for he threw open the door, and we commenced the ascent of the dark and high stairs. I did not hesitate to follow Rufin, although unable to understand the necessity of such concealment. " How much higher ? " " Sshh ! " I did not speak again until we had reached the fourth story and Rufin had opened the door of a dwelling with a key from his pocket. " You seem to be at home ? " " Yes ; come in."

We removed our coats and goloshes. The lodging seemed deserted, although two of the rooms were brightly illuminated with large lamps, and a bright open fire burned in the grate of one. The room in which we seated ourselves was sumptuously furnished, a grand piano, a Persian divan, walnut table, easy chairs, a curio cabinet, whatnots, knicknacks, freshly cut flowers, tropical plants. This, surely, was not the residence of a bachelor. Rufin saw the puzzled look in my face and laughed. " You would like to explore the premises ? " " I am curious to know who lives here." " That I dare not tell you. I am here very often. It is not bad, eh ? So far all is right. " Now to business. You will smoke, of course. Take a papeeross or a cigar ; not those, they are too mild. Our Russian ladies all smoke, as you know.

Those are better. Now the photo-album ; here it is, the very man. What do you think of him ? " The portrait was a cabinet vignette of a middle-aged, sombre-visaged, small-featured man. He wore a short beard and heavymoustache, the eyebrows were shaggy, the eyes sunken, small, and piercing, the nose retrousse; in all a good likeness of an ordinary man who was sitting to have his portrait taken. " One cannot judge well from this." " You are right, Vassy. That is the man as you will see him ; this " — and he removed the photograph from the album, exhibiting another concealed beneath it — " shows him in another mood." This portrait appeared to be an instantaneous photograph enlarged ; it had probablybeen taken by a detective camera, but where ? The man wore peculiar vestments, not unlike those of an Ancient Druid, his face was partly obscured by his hand clenched upon what appeared to be the hilt of a large dagger.