human
Well, Lord Wilmersley, what brings you here?
gpt
I have called to tell you that my wife has left the nursing home,
human
Impossible! cried the doctor.
gpt
She was quite calm this morning. The nurse would----
human
The nurse had nothing to do with it, interrupted Cyril hastily.
gpt
It was I who took her away.
human
You? But why this haste? I thought you had decided to wait till to-morrow.
gpt
For family reasons, which I need not go into now, I thought it best that she should be removed at once.
human
And may I know where she is?
gpt
I intend to take her to Geralton--in--in a few days.
human
Indeed!
gpt
So you do not wish me to know where you have hidden her.
human
Hidden her? Cyril raised his eyebrows deprecatingly.
gpt
That is a strange expression to use. It seems to me that a man has certainly the right to withhold his wife's address from a comparative stranger without being accused of hiding her. You should really choose your words more carefully, my dear sir.
human
It's no use, he said at last, stopping in front of Cyril.
gpt
You can't persuade me that there is not some mystery connected with Lady Wilmersley. And I warn you that I have determined to find out the truth.
human
A mystery? What an amusing idea! A man of your imagination is really wasted in the medical profession. You should write, my dear doctor, you really should. But, granting for the sake of argument that I have something to conceal, what right have you to try to force my confidence? My wife's movements are surely no concern of yours.
gpt
One has not only the right, but it becomes one's obvious duty to interfere, when one has reason to believe that by doing so one may prevent the ill-treatment of a helpless woman.
human
Do you really think I ill-treat my wife?
gpt
I think it is possible. And till I am sure that my fears are unfounded, I will not consent to Lady Wilmersley's remaining in your sole care.
human
Do you mind telling me what basis you have for such a monstrous suspicion?
gpt
Certainly. You bring me a young lady who has been flogged. You tell me that she is your wife, yet you profess to know nothing of her injuries and give an explanation which, although not impossible, is at all events highly improbable. This lady, who is not only beautiful but charming, you neglect in the most astonishing manner. No, I am not forgetting that you had other pressing duties to attend to, but even so, if you had cared for your wife, you could not have remained away from her as you did. It was nothing less than heartless to leave a poor young woman, in the state she was in, alone among strangers. Your letter only partially satisfied me. Your arguments would have seemed to me perfectly unconvincing, if I had not been so anxious to believe the best. As it was, although I tried to ignore it, a root of suspicion still lingered in my mind. Then, when you finally do turn up, instead of hurrying to your wife's bedside you try in every way to avoid meeting her till at last I have to insist upon your doing so. I tell you, that if she had not shown such marked affection for you, I should have had no doubt of your guilt.
human
Nonsense! Do I look like a wife-beater?
gpt
No, but the only murderess I ever knew looked like one of Raphael's Madonnas.
human
Thanks for the implication.
gpt
The more I observed Mrs. Thompkins, continued the doctor,
human
Even physicians are occasionally mistaken in their diagnosis, I have been told.
gpt
You are right; that is why I have given you the benefit of the doubt, replied the doctor calmly.
human
This morning, however, I made a discovery, which practically proves that my suspicions were not unfounded.
gpt
And pray what is this great discovery of yours?
human
I had been worrying about this case all night, when it suddenly occurred to me to consult the peerage. I wanted to find out who Lady Wilmersley's people were, so that I might communicate with them if I considered it necessary. The first thing I found was that your wife was born in 18--, so that now she is in her twenty-eighth year. My patient is certainly not more than twenty. How do you account for this discrepancy in their ages?
gpt
And is my wife's youthful appearance your only reason for doubting her identity?
human
It is my chief reason, but as I have just taken the trouble to explain, not my only one.
gpt
Oh, really! And if she is not my wife, whom do you suspect her of being?
human
I have no idea.
gpt
You astonish me.
human
Your manner is insulting, my lord.
gpt
Your suspicions are so flattering!
human
You must acknowledge that appearances are against you, he said at last, making a valiant effort to control his temper.
gpt
If you are a man of honour, you ought to appreciate that my position is a very difficult one and to be as ready to forgive me, if I have erred through excessive zeal, as I shall be to apologise to you. Now let me ask you one more question. Why were you so anxious that I should not see the jewels?
human
Oh, had you not seen them? I thought, of course, that you had. I apologise for not having satisfied your curiosity.
gpt
I can't help it. I feel that there is something fishy about this business. You can't convince me to the contrary.
human
I was not aware that I was trying to do so.
gpt
Lord Wilmersley--for I suppose you are Lord Wilmersley?
human
Unless I am his valet, Peter Thompkins.
gpt
I know nothing about you, cried the doctor,
human
So you suspect me not only of flogging my wife but of murdering my cousin! laughed Cyril.
gpt
My dear doctor, don't you realise that if there were the slightest grounds for your suspicions, the police would have put me under surveillance long ago. Why, I can easily prove that I was in Paris at the time of the murder.
human
Oh, you are clever! I don't doubt that you have an impeccable alibi. But if I informed the police that you were passing off as your wife a girl several years younger than Lady Wilmersley, a girl, moreover, who, you acknowledged, joined you at Newhaven the very morning after the murder--if I told them that this young lady had in her possession a remarkable number of jewels, which she carried in a cheap, black bag--what do you think they would say to that, my lord?
gpt
They would no doubt pay as high a tribute to your imagination as I do,
human
You have been insulting me for the last half-hour, and I have borne it very patiently, partly because your absurd suspicions amused me, and partly because I realised that, although you are a fool, you are an honest fool.
gpt
Sir!
human
You can hardly resent being called a fool by a man you have been accusing of murder and wife-beating. But I don't want you to go to the police with this cock-and-bull story----
gpt
Ah! I thought not,
human
Because, continued Cyril, ignoring the interruption,
gpt
I want to protect my wife from unpleasant notoriety, and also, although you don't deserve it, to keep you from becoming a public laughing stock. So far you have done all the talking; now you are to listen to me. Sit down. You make me nervous strutting about like that. Sit down, I tell you. There, that's better. Now let us see what all this rigmarole really amounts to. You began by asking for my wife's address, and when I did not immediately gratify what I considered your impertinent curiosity, you launch forth into vague threats of exposure. As far as I can make out from your disjointed harangue, your excuse for prying into my affairs is that by doing so you are protecting a helpless woman from further ill-treatment. Very well. Granting that you really suppose me to be a brute, your behaviour might be perfectly justified if--if you believed that your patient is my wife. But you tell me that you do not. You think that she is either my mistress or my accomplice, or both. Now, if she is a criminal and an immoral woman, you must admit that she has shown extraordinary cleverness, inasmuch as she succeeded not only in eluding the police but in deceiving you. For the impression she made on you was a very favourable one, was it not? She seemed to you unusually innocent as well as absolutely frank, didn't she?
human
Yes,
gpt
Now, if she was able to dupe so trained an observer as yourself, she must be a remarkable woman, and cannot be the helpless creature you picture her, and consequently would be in no danger of being forced to submit to abuse from any one.
human
True,
gpt
But I think I can prove to you that you were not mistaken in your first estimate of her character. This illness of hers--was it real or could it have been feigned?
human
It was real. There is no doubt about that.
gpt
You saw her when she was only semi-conscious, when she was physically incapable of acting a part--did she during that time, either by word or look, betray moral perversity?
human
She did not.
gpt
How, then, can you doubt her? And if she is what she seems, she is certainly neither my mistress nor a thief; and if she is not the one nor the other, she must be my wife, and if you go to the police with your absurd suspicions, you will only succeed in making yourself ridiculous.
human
You make a great point of the fact that my wife had in her possession a number of valuable ornaments, continued Cyril.
gpt
But why should she not? My wife insisted on having all her jewelry with her at Charleroi, and when she escaped from there, they were among the few things she took with her. The excitement of meeting her so unexpectedly and her sudden illness made me forget all about them, otherwise I would have taken them out of the bag, which, as you may have noticed, was not even locked. But the very fact that I did forget all about them and allowed them to pass through the hands of nurses and servants, that alone ought to convince you that I did not come by them dishonestly. You had them for days in your possession; yet you accuse me of having prevented you from examining them. That is really ridiculous! Your whole case against me is built on the wildest conjectures, from which you proceed to draw perfectly untenable inferences. My wife looks young for her age, I grant you; but even you would not venture to swear positively that she is not twenty-eight. You fancied that I neglected her; consequently I am a brute. She is sane now; so you believe that she has never been otherwise. You imagined that I did not wish you to examine the contents of my wife's bag, therefore the Wilmersley jewels must have been in it.
human
What you say sounds plausible enough, acknowledged the doctor,