Links in a Chain.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 1004, 25 February 1871, Page 20

Links in a Chain.

A TALE.

In an interval of busy professional life I sit down to record a series of remarkable events.

Remarkable they unquestionably were in themselves, but more especially so from the manner in which they came within my experience. Though the part I played in connection with them was from first to last little more than that of a spectator, yet it will, I think, be granted that there was something strange, something inexplicable, in the manner in which that part was again and again thrust upon me, and always, it would appear, to qualify me for helping to bring about a certain result.

In the December of 1835 I came up to London to spend my Christmas. I was but nineteen, and. had never set foot in the great city before. My desire to see it was intense, and to gratify this a friend—Jack Halford we called him— had asked me up to share the grimy hospitality of Barnard's inn during pantomime time,

" You must not expect to live luxuriously, or to fare sumptuously," he had written. " The inn of Barnard is severe as to lodgment, and scarce as to catering, It is congenial lo the tastes of the Eremite rather than to those of the Sybarite ; but lendeth itself not unkindly to him who would see * life, ' Come up on the 23rd, By that time I shall have returned from a few days' idling in Kent, for which I am now preparing."

Acting literaly on the terms of my friend's invitation, I Btarted from Derbyshire by coach on the morning of the 23rd, and arrived in town, cold, hungry, and wretched, long after dark that night. Knowing nothing of London, I took a cab and drove direct to Barnard'sinn. On my arrival a pimply-faced porter confronted me, and I asked for my friend.

" Out of town, down in Kent."

That was his answer. " But he expected me," I urged. " I could, of course, get admission to his rooms ?"

The pimply porter shook his head. He had not the keys. The laundress was at homeno doubt abed. lie had received no orders to admit anybody to Mr. Halford's chambers ; in fact, it would be more than Ms place was worth to do so. Eventually he consented to take charge of my luggage, and, on his advice I set out in search of a hotel where I might get a bed for the night. There were plenty of hotels in Holborn : but as the street was agreeably bright and lively for the hour, I thought I would walk a little and take my choice of them. Perhaps I was not without some faint hope that I might encounter Halford, who I .felt little doubt would return that night. Afe all events, I wandered away, got out of the main streets, grew bewildered, and eventually asked my way of a man who turned out to be the boots of what he described as a most respectable inn, one of the oldest in London, where, he assured me, I could receive every accommodation.

The house was unquestionably old. It had also a dingy and forlorn aspect ; but I was hungry and tired, and glad to avail myself of supper, with the prospect of a bed to follow. Sol allowed myself to be enticed into the place, and along a dark passage, into a wretched hole of a room at the back, which had the sole merit of being unoccupied. It had a floor that shelved down towards the great fireplace, wide and draughty, and a low ceiling shelving also, and threatening to fall injspite of the two huge beams which sustained it. A century of smokers had contributed to the indescribable odour that pervaded it. Two caudles in tin frames burned against the walls, and there was probably an idea that the room benefited from a lamp in the passage, which could be dimly descried through certain panes of ground-glass in the room door, which bore the legend " Coffee-room" — quite as a matter of fancy, seeing that coffee had obviously never been drank there within the memory of liv. ing man.

A poor supper, a glass of something hot, and to bed. To bed in a close, stuffy backroom, with a look-out comprising the backwindow s of a row of houses stretching away farther than I could see. Never had I seen so villainous a room. Tired as I was, sleep seemed impossible ; but I threw myself on the hard bed in the hope that it might at least give me rest. In that hope I put out the light ; but no sooner had I done so than my brain warmed into activity by the glass I had. taken, and begnu to exert itself in distressing speculations. What, I asked myself, was the character of the house into which I had ventured so imprudently ? Was I safe ? Should I be robbed, ill-treated, murdered ? For a time I rendered myself utterly miserable through these fears and misgiving. Then I began to laugh them down — to attribute my unpleasant impressions to an ignorance of town life ; and so by degrees I grew calm and inert, and sleep came upon me unawares. I closed ray eyelids and sank into the most refreshing of slumbers.

From this blissful unconsciousness I was startled by a scream. Jumping up, I looked about me. All dark, all silent ; yet I had heard it most distinctly — a shrill, piercing scream, as if from the lips of some one in mortal agony. At first my impression was that I was not alone ; but, finding all silent about me, I rushed to the window, raised the blind, and looked out.

In the instant I. did so, my eyes encount* ered a frightful sight. There was a light in one of the opposite windows, and the light shone through the white blind. It shone with sufficient brilliancy to throw upon the blind the shadow of two figures. One figure was that of a woman, staggering back, with long down-loosening hair ; the other that of a man who was rusliing upon the woman with a long knife clutched like a dagger in his hand. As I gazed the knife descended ; the woman fell ; there was, or I fancied there was, an audible moan ; then the light was extinguished—suddenly, as if it had fallen or been trampled under foot— and there was nothing to distinguish that window from any other in the row.

I waited. Standing there shivering in the dark, I waited for what might happen next. For half an hour at least I remained at the window, but without anything further occurring. The light did not re- appear. Whatever the result of the blow I had seen dealt, it had clearly aroused no one, and, though not without misgivings that I had witnessed an assasslnation, I at length returned to bed, and finally sank again into troubled slumber.

Late in the morning heavy steps on the stairs awoke me. Almost immediately the incident of the shadow on the blind recurred to me with intense vividness. I could see the knife, the falling woman, and the man, whose face had been so distinctly outlined that I could almost have identified his features, while 1 could with certainty declare that he wore a sort of forage-cap, with a projecting peak standing out straight from the forehead. Full of this impression, I darted to the window and looked out. Unfortunately, I looked in vain. There were many windows in the row of houses, all alike, and nearly all had the blinds dewn. The consequence was, that I could not even tell in which I had witnessed the deed of the over-night. This uncertainty had one effect : with the impetuosity of youth, I burned to communicate what I had witnessed but I felt that it was hardly likely I should meet with much credit when I could not even point out the house in which what I described had happened. People would not unnaturally conclude that I had been dreaming.

With this impression I descended to the miserable room in which I had dined overnight, and ordered breakfast. Several persons were present, each epgaged on his morning meal, and I looked from one to the other in the firm conviction that presently some allusion to a murder in the neighborhood would greet my ears. In this I was disappointed : all were silent. So I imitated their example, held my peace, and breakfasted as best I might.

The meal was over, and I sat propping my chin in the hollow of one hand, and staring vacantly at the glazed door with the lamp still burning in the passage outside it, when I suddenly started and cried ouk The cause was simply this : as 1 looked I saw the shadow of a face cast by the lamp on the ground- glass ! It was the face of someone stealing noiselessly along the passage, and to my amazement I recognised as the same face I had beheld over-night— the face of the man who had dealt the blow ! I could swear to the features, and still more I could not be mistaken in the identity of the peaked cap.

Acting solely on impulse, I darted out of the room and made my way along the passage : but, in place of the assassin of whom I was in pursuit, encountered only jthe waiter who had attended to my wants in the coffee-room. He was an old, ill-favored man, in greasy black, and with a wisp of dirty linen about his neck, to match the napkin over his arm. At sight of me he thrust out his arms. " No, you don't ! " he exclaimed aggressively.

" What do you mean ? " I demanded. " Who is the man who has just quitted this passage ? "

" Man ! "he ejaculated 5 " 0 yes, I daresay ; we've heard that before. That's a stale game, that is ! "

I expressed my astonishment and inability to comprehend his meaning. Of that, however, he did not leave me long in doubt.

" O, we understand," he remarked injuriously. ' ' You ain't the fust by long chalks as 'aye tried on that gsme : comin' here without a bit or morsel of luggage ; gettin' of your supper, bed, and breakfast, and then all of a sudden there's a 'man* passin' the winder, or there's a 'pintment in the City, or a something or another, and off you goes ! And we may hook for the bill, we may. 0 yes ;we know ! Not this time. Not if we're aweer of it ! "

The effecD of this imputation of swindling motives so overwhelmed me that I had not a word to say to offer in explanation or defence. I simply paid my bill and quitted the house, which, as I saw on emerging into the street, was called the Green Posts. Hastening off to Bernards-inn, I had the satisfaction of finding that Halford had returned, and was full of apologies for the inconvenience he had caused me. Later in the day I confided to him the adventure in which his absence had involved me. He listened ; but attached no great importance to what I had seen.

"Stabbings and things of that sort are constantly happening in London," he said. " There isn't a night without its dozen murders. However, I know the G-reen Posts, up Gray's-inn-road way, and we'll go this evening and see if you can find the house where thia happened."

This suggestion entirely jumped into my views, and after dinner we set out, found the"* house I had slept at, aud the street adjoining it. And, indeed, it would have been strange had we not found the latter, for it was full of people in the utmost state of excitement. There were, moreover, fire-engines in it, others were momentarily arriving, and a great glare of flame irradiated the sky. A house was on fire, and I had a conviction that it

was the rery liouse in which I had leen the murderous deed perpetrated. I was for giving information to the authorities, but Halford dissuaded me. " Doubtless the body of the woman is consumed," he said ; " the house having in all probability been fired with the object. You would only bring yourself into unenviable notoriety for no purpose." And I remained silent, though the fire intensified my suspicions that I had witnessed the perpetration of a cowardly murder.

Years passed away. Halford had risen in his profession, but still clung to his gloomy old stronghold in Barnard's-inn. I had spent many a jovial hour there in those halcyon days which prelude the stern realities of medical life : the days sacred to that most joyous of human pursuits, the walking of hospitals ! I had succeeded to my father's practice, and lived in the old bouse, in the quiet old Derbyshire market-town, which our family had inhabited for two hundred years. One night, on returning from a long proSessional round, I received & letter in a woman's hand, entreating me to come up to .London without loss of time, Halford, the writer said, was ill : she feared, dying, The letter bore a signature ; but I could only decipher the word "Joanna ; " the rest was a mere blur. The next night found me at Burnard's-inn, My coming had been eagerly looked for, the porter told me, and in confirmation of this I was received at the door of Jack's chambers by a young woman, who, on seeing me, uttered an exclamation of gratitude, and thanked me again and again for my kindness in coming. "I have the pleasure of addressing Joanna ? " I inquired. She blushed, and dropped her eyelids in acquiescence, She had darkly-fringed lids, and tears like dewdrops glistened on the fringes. A pretty, sweet-faced woman altogether was Joanna 5 one whom it was impossible not to admire, and it might have been easy to love to distraction. After admitting that I was right in calling her Joanna, she said no more to herself, but, drawing me aside, explained what had happened to Halford. It was very mys terious, she said, shuddering as she spoke, but while coming home from a friend's a few nights before, he had been shot at and severely wounded. "Shot at!" I ejaculated with genuine surprise. "Attacked— robbed— l suppose ? " "No. Simply shot at from a doorway ; the man seeing him fall, ran away." " And where was this ? " " In Red-Jion-square." "Strange l The object must have been robbery ? " She shook her head, and was then seized with so violent a tremour that she had to clutch at a chair to save herself. Then she further informed me that the effects of the shot had been very serious, from a difficulty in extracting the ball, which had, however, been happily accomplished that morning, Since then there had been a slight improvement,

I found my friend ill, very ill ; but did not despair of his life, He was quite insensible, and remained so some days. During that time I stayed in town ; in fact, I protracted my stay long enough to satisfy myself that he was out of danger. My companion in the sick-room was Joanna, whose intelligence I found to equal her beauty. We talked much of Jack, and I saw that she was devoted to her ; but she did not say a word about herself or the relations between them, and the subject was bo delicate chat I dared not question her upon it, One singular observation, and one only, she let slip ; it was to the effect that it was hard he should suffer all this for her sake,

That phrase struck me at the time, and haunted me both on my homeward journey and long afterwards. What did it mean ? In a month or so, Jack had recovered sufficiently to write and thank me for coming up to him j but he made no allusion to the attack which had been attended with consequences so serious, and, more singular still, there was no word of Joanna from one end of the letter to the other.

To those engaged in professional duties, time flies. So three or four years might have gone by before the incident with which I opened this narrative was suddenly and strikingly recalled to my memory. I had gone to France for a few weeks' change, and was travelling between Amiens and Paris on the then newly- opened railway, when at one of the sharp curves in the line our train went off the rails. Several of the carriages were overturned, and one was smashed to atoms. In that one carriage several persons were riding, and all were more or less injured. The severest sufferer was an Englishman, Jasper Nuttall, as I gathered from his card-case ; for immediately on learning what had happened I went to his assistance. :

The man was very much shaken ; two of his ribs were broken, and he had received some internal injury which caused blood to flow from his mouth. His own conviction was that he would not recover, and his horror of death was childish in its exaggeration. For this, however, I soon learned there was a cause. After binding me by a solemn oath not to divulge what I was about to hear while he lived, he entrusted me with a confession of a most serious nature. This was the substance of it :

The name he bore was not his true name, he said ; what that was did not matter, as he had not used it for many years. The occasion of his abandoning it was this. He had spent his early life as a midshipman in the royal navy, and while on Bhore during a month's leave he had been introduced to a young lady, who, though eighteen years of age, was still at a boarding-school at Canterbury, her parents having died while she was an infant.

A fierce, consuming passion for this beautiful girl took possession of him ; bat she did not encourage his advances, her heart being already given to another, who was secretly paying her his addresses. Such, however, was this Jasper's ardour that he gave her no peace, and followed her up with such indescretion that the school authorities discovered the connection, and talked of expulsion. Terrified at this threat— fearing also that by what had happened becoming knotrn she should compromise herself with her lovei beyond forgiveness— the girl, in a foolish moment, consented to elope with Jasper Nuttall ; and in a few days they were privately married. But, directly the ceremony wbb performed, the girl repented of her rash act, and, seizing an opportunity, ran away from the husband of an hour.

Exasperated beyond measure, the narrator proceeded, he followed his wife up to London $ he ascertained after a while that she was in hiding in a low lodging in a qnstionable neighborhood : he found out also that she had written to her old lover, to what effect he knew not ; and on the night of making these discoveries he went to the house she was concealed in, found a means of entrance, and suddenly presented himself before the terrified woman, who caught up a table knife to defend herself with, This he snatched from her, and, maddened with drink, passion, and jealousy, he, on her irritating him by a refusal to explain or go elsewhere with him, plunged it into her heart. That done, he left the house as secretly as he had entered it, but did not quit the neighborhood. All that night and the succeeding day he loitered about to see what would happen, expecting every moment to be seized and denounced as a murderer. But all that day passed, and nothing happened. At nightfall an idea took possession of his maddened brain. He determined to fire the house in which he had committed the murder, so as to hide all traces of his crime.

"And this hideous purpose you carried into execution," I interrupted. " I remember it perfectly." " You remember ? " he asked aghast.

"Certainly 5 1 saw the murder committed." So astounded was the poor wretch at these words, so astounded and overcome with mingled pain and terror, that he fainted. In that state he was removed to a cottage in the neighborhood ; and when the train was ready to carry those of us able to travel onto Paris, I left him, with the firm impression that his eyes would never open again in this world.

The fact that this revelation should have been made to me— to me of all human beings — impressed me so strongly that on my return to England, I wrote to Jack Halford, giving him an account of what had happened, as far as I felt myself justified in doing so ; dwelling on the singularity of our old mystery being cleared up after so many years 5 and adding that, now the unhappy wretch was dead and gone, it was well that his secret should die with him.

To this I received an immediate reply, expressing surprise, and asking whether the name of the dead man was not Jasper Nuttall. My astonishment at the question was great ; but I had no reason to withhold the information from my old friend, and I answered in the affirmative, For at least three months after, I heard no more of Jack : then be wrote, informing me that he was about to give up the old chambers, and the old life ; to tear himself from the blandishments of the Inn of Barnard, and to take unto himself a partner in life's transports and tribulations. The lady's name he informed me was Joanna Hilders, orphan daughter of the late Captain Hilders, a lady whom I would recollect having met at the Inn some years ago.

At last, then, the murder was out } Joanna was to be his wife. I certainly resented not having been taken into their confidence before ; but an invitation to the wedding made amends (though I was unable to accept it}, and I was not sorry to know that dear Jack was at last comfortably married and seitled.

The next Christmas, Mr. and Mrs. Jack, as we called them, came down to Derbyshire on a visit, and so pleasant did this prove that the experiment was tried on the following Christmas. Mr?. Jack was, as I have intimated, a pretty, lovable woman, and I often wondered where he had met with her. It leaked out that he had known her some yeara ; and that wan about all I was able to learn.

During this second visit the weather was fine, and we rode out moit days. .On the afternoon preceding Christmas-eve, we took a long drive, and while going through a lane bordered with trees, a trifling: but rather singular incident occurred. The lady suddenly cried out, "0, Jack ! Jack 1" and pointed in the direction in which she was looking, her face being expressive of intense alarm. Jack inquired what was the matter, and she in reply whispered in his ear. Thereupon he looked serious ; but instantly shook oft the feeling, and said, with a smile, "Joanna is constanily fancying likenepsss in strangers to people we have met. Did you observe anything peculiar in the stranger under the tree we last passed ?" I had not even observed a stranger: I said so, and there the matter dropped. That evening we sat round the fire in our old-fashioned living-room. The lamp was not lit, but the piled logs sent out a strong glare, and it was pleasant, in the flickering uncertain light, to Bee the stars shining through the windows, and to listen to the ringing of distant church-bells, borne in fitful gusts on the breeze. Suddenly we were all startled by a crash. One of the casemented windows had been burst in, and looking round, I saw a man leap into the room. He was ragged in his dress, with shock hair, a white face, and fiercelyburning eyes. Staggering forward, he threw up his arms, and uttered a wild shriek.

"My wife 1" he screamed ) " give me my dead wife !"

In uttering these words he rushed towards Halford, but on his way stumbled against the table in the middle of the room and fell forward over it, his bare arms thfown out wildly, and his head striking on the mahogany with a sharp sound. Both Halford and his wife started up, but the latter, with a scared and terrified look, dropped back into her chair. "Jasper!" she ejaculated in a tone of horror, and sank back insensible.

I caught at the name to which she had given utterance, as stepping to the table I clutched at the intruder's long hair and turned bis face to the light. It presented a terrible aspect. The eyes were bright but wild ; the mouth was working convulsively. I had little difficulty in deciding that it was the face of a maniac ; but still less difficuly in recognising it as that of Jasper Nuttall, whom I had left for dead after the accident on the line between Amiens and Paris !

While I was in the act of making this discovery, there were voices and footsteps without, and several strange faces looked in at the window. They were keepers from the county lunatic asylum, in search of an escaped patient. At the sound of their voices the wretched being before me sprang from the table, beat out wildly at the air, uttered gurgling and inarticulate sounds, and then, to our inexpressible horror, fell backwards — dead.

Rapidly as all this had passed, there had been time enough for me to see, as in a flash, the connecting link between the incidents of years— between my first London experience, as above recorded, and the horror I had just witnessed. Intuitively I perceived, what I had never of course for an instant suspected, that Joanna was the object of Jasper Nuttall's affection, the girl whom he had made his wife. But he had taken her life, and destroyed her body in the flames cf the burning house ? True, he believed that ; but was it so ? Had the wound he had inflicted proved mortal, or had it not ?

Under pretence of faciliating "her restoration, I stepped up, and with a pair of scissors divided the cord that fastened Joanna's bodice. As I expected, her bosom presented traces of a stab — a deep fiery scar. Halford's deep eye noticed that I saw this, and that it had a significance for me. On this he — when the body of the unfortunate man had been removed by the keepers — tendered an explanation which spared me further conjecture.

His avowal was to this effect. He was Jasper Nuttall's rival, and was down at Canterbury, waiting an opportunity to see Joanna on the day of my first visit to his chambers. Although he failed to see her, he received her letter apprising him of the false step she had taken, and imploring his forgiveness. Hence he little imagined that she was in danger ; less still, of course, that it was against her I had seen a murderous hand raised, or that it was her body we suspected to have perished in the flames of the burning house. Heavens ! the very idea would have driven him frantic. Fortunately, the wound inflicted had not proved mortal. The knife did not enter her heart, but passed between the two lobes of the lungs, and the people of the lodging-house discovering what had happened in time, the unhappy girl was removed to an hospital, so thatNuttall's second criminal act, that of firing the house, was perpetrated in vain. After the fire Jasper Nuttall disappeared, and for years Joanna remained in concealment, watched over by Halford, though estranged from him by her fatal marriage. No doubt the murderer, as he supposed himself to be, spent the interval at sea ; but that he nursed the deadliest hatred of his rival in his heart was pretty well proved by the attempt at length made on Halford's life, for neither he nor Joanna ever doubted that it was Jasper Nuttall who — probably during a temporary stay in England — fired the shot which so nearly ended my friend's life. All the while Nuttall lived, Joanna's position was a most painful one j but on Halford's receiving my account of the railway accident, and the discovery it had led to, with the conclusion I had too hastily jumped at, that the man was dead, he had formally proposed to his old love, and their marriage followed as a thing of course. What wonder then, that Joanna should have been overcome with terror when that night she saw her first husband standing alive before her 1

My hasty conclusion as to the impossibility of the man's surviving had, of course, done all the mischief . He had survived, but his health was shattered, and his brain, always weak and excitable, had given way, and his friends in England had placed him in the Derby asylum, from which he had that day contrived to escape. Poor wretch 1 We pitied him sincerely. Jack's tender heart was moved at his miserable end, and perhaps the least touch of self-reproach prompted the tears Joanna shed at the memory of one who had loved her as deeply as he had wronged her. For my own part, while I felt for him, I was strongly impressed by the singular bearing one upon another of the links in this strange chain of events, extending over so many years. It seemed a mere accident that I was ever concerned in the matter at all ; yet but for that accident Halford and Joanna might never have been united, and Nuttall would probably have died in the asylum, his death unknown to those who, from uncertainty about his fate and terror at his probable reappearance, might have gone down to their graves nursing a hopeless and fruitless passion. The problem of their lives was happily destined to be worked out to & more blissful solution.

What goes most aguiißt a farmer's grain ? —His reaper.