It was late that night that a startled
knocking came at the door of Elmdene. Laura had
been in her room all day, and Robert was moodily smoking
his pipe by the fire, when this harsh and sudden summons
broke in upon his thoughts. There in the porch
was Jones, the stout head-butler of the Hall, hatless,
scared, with the raindrops shining in the lamplight
upon his smooth, bald head.
“If you please, Mr. McIntyre,
sir, would it trouble you to step up to the Hall?”
he cried. “We are all frightened, sir, about
master.”
Robert caught up his hat and started
at a run, the frightened butler trotting heavily beside
him. It had been a day of excitement and disaster.
The young artist’s heart was heavy within him,
and the shadow of some crowning trouble seemed to
have fallen upon his soul.
“What is the matter with your
master, then?” he asked, as he slowed down into
a walk.
“We don’t know, sir; but
we can’t get an answer when we knock at the
laboratory door. Yet he’s there, for it’s
locked on the inside. It has given us all a scare,
sir, that, and his goin’s-on during the day.”
“His goings-on?”
“Yes, sir; for he came back
this morning like a man demented, a-talkin’
to himself, and with his eyes starin’ so that
it was dreadful to look at the poor dear gentleman.
Then he walked about the passages a long time, and
he wouldn’t so much as look at his luncheon,
but he went into the museum, and gathered all his
jewels and things, and carried them into the laboratory.
We don’t know what he’s done since then,
sir, but his furnace has been a-roarin’, and
his big chimney spoutin’ smoke like a Birmingham
factory. When night came we could see his figure
against the light, a-workin’ and a-heavin’
like a man possessed. No dinner would he have,
but work, and work, and work. Now it’s all
quiet, and the furnace cold, and no smoke from above,
but we can’t get no answer from him, sir, so
we are scared, and Miller has gone for the police,
and I came away for you.”
They reached the Hall as the butler
finished his explanation, and there outside the laboratory
door stood the little knot of footmen and ostlers,
while the village policeman, who had just arrived,
was holding his bull’s-eye to the keyhole, and
endeavouring to peep through.
“The key is half-turned,”
he said. “I can’t see nothing except
just the light.”
“Here’s Mr. McIntyre,”
cried half-a-dozen voices, as Robert came forward.
“We’ll have to beat the
door in, sir,” said the policeman. “We
can’t get any sort of answer, and there’s
something wrong.”
Twice and thrice they threw their
united weights against it until at last with a sharp
snap the lock broke, and they crowded into the narrow
passage. The inner door was ajar, and the laboratory
lay before them.
In the centre was an enormous heap
of fluffy grey ash, reaching up half-way to the ceiling.
Beside it was another heap, much smaller, of some
brilliant scintillating dust, which shimmered brightly
in the rays of the electric light. All round
was a bewildering chaos of broken jars, shattered
bottles, cracked machinery, and tangled wires, all
bent and draggled. And there in the midst of
this universal ruin, leaning back in his chair with
his hands clasped upon his lap, and the easy pose of
one who rests after hard work safely carried through,
sat Raffles Haw, the master of the house, and the
richest of mankind, with the pallor of death upon
his face. So easily he sat and so naturally, with
such a serene expression upon his features, that it
was not until they raised him, and touched his cold
and rigid limbs, that they could realise that he had
indeed passed away.
Reverently and slowly they bore him
to his room, for he was beloved by all who had served
him. Robert alone lingered with the policeman
in the laboratory. Like a man in a dream he wandered
about, marvelling at the universal destruction.
A large broad-headed hammer lay upon the ground, and
with this Haw had apparently set himself to destroy
all his apparatus, having first used his electrical
machines to reduce to protyle all the stock of gold
which he had accumulated. The treasure-room which
had so dazzled Robert consisted now of merely four
bare walls, while the gleaming dust upon the floor
proclaimed the fate of that magnificent collection
of gems which had alone amounted to a royal fortune.
Of all the machinery no single piece remained intact,
and even the glass table was shattered into three pieces.
Strenuously earnest must have been the work which
Raffles Haw had done that day.
And suddenly Robert thought of the
secret which had been treasured in the casket within
the iron-clamped box. It was to tell him the one
last essential link which would make his knowledge
of the process complete. Was it still there?
Thrilling all over, he opened the great chest, and
drew out the ivory box. It was locked, but the
key was in it. He turned it and threw open the
lid. There was a white slip of paper with his
own name written upon it. With trembling fingers
he unfolded it. Was he the heir to the riches
of El Dorado, or was he destined to be a poor struggling
artist? The note was dated that very evening,
and ran in this way:
“My dear Robert, My
secret shall never be used again. I cannot tell
you how I thank Heaven that I did not entirely confide
it to you, for I should have been handing over
an inheritance of misery both to yourself and others.
For myself I have hardly had a happy moment since
I discovered it. This I could have borne had I
been able to feel that I was doing good, but, alas!
the only effect of my attempts has been to turn
workers into idlers, contented men into greedy
parasites, and, worst of all, true, pure women into
deceivers and hypocrites. If this is the effect
of my interference on a small scale, I cannot hope
for anything better were I to carry out the plans
which we have so often discussed. The schemes
of my life have all turned to nothing. For
myself, you shall never see me again. I shall
go back to the student life from which I emerged.
There, at least, if I can do little good, I can
do no harm. It is my wish that such valuables
as remain in the Hall should be sold, and the proceeds
divided amidst all the charities of Birmingham.
I shall leave tonight if I am well enough, but I
have been much troubled all day by a stabbing pain
in my side. It is as if wealth were as bad
for health as it is for peace of mind. Good-bye,
Robert, and may you never have as sad a heart as
I have to-night. Yours very truly, raffles
Haw.”
“Was it suicide, sir? Was
it suicide?” broke in the policeman as Robert
put the note in his pocket.
“No,” he answered; “I think it was
a broken heart.”
And so the wonders of the New Hall
were all dismantled, the carvings and the gold, the
books and the pictures, and many a struggling man or
woman who had heard nothing of Raffles Haw during
his life had cause to bless him after his death.
The house has been bought by a company now, who have
turned it into a hydropathic establishment, and of
all the folk who frequent it in search of health or
of pleasure there are few who know the strange story
which is connected with it.
The blight which Haw’s wealth
cast around it seemed to last even after his death.
Old McIntyre still raves in the County Lunatic Asylum,
and treasures up old scraps of wood and metal under
the impression that they are all ingots of gold.
Robert McIntyre is a moody and irritable man, for
ever pursuing a quest which will always evade him.
His art is forgotten, and he spends his whole small
income upon chemical and electrical appliances, with
which he vainly seeks to rediscover that one hidden
link. His sister keeps house for him, a silent
and brooding woman, still queenly and beautiful, but
of a bitter, dissatisfied mind. Of late, however,
she has devoted herself to charity, and has been of
so much help to Mr. Spurling’s new curate that
it is thought that he may be tempted to secure her
assistance for ever. So runs the gossip of the
village, and in small places such gossip is seldom
wrong. As to Hector Spurling, he is still in
her Majesty’s service, and seems inclined to
abide by his father’s wise advice, that he should
not think of marrying until he was a Commander.
It is possible that of all who were brought within
the spell of Raffles Haw he was the only one who had
occasion to bless it.