The Man with a Shadow

“Curse business!” cried the squire, as he kept on watching the lawyer keenly. “Look here, Thompson, how was it that you two being cousins, he has so much money, and you’re as poor as Job?”

“Way of the world, my dear sir – way of the world.”

Tom Candlish sat back, chewing the end of his cigar and smoking hard.

“Look here, you Thompson! Now out with it; you don’t like Dr North?”

“Like him? I hate all doctors; just as you do.”

“That’s shuffling out of it,” said Candlish scornfully; “but you needn’t be afraid of me. I’m open enough. I’m not above speaking out and telling you I hate him. I wish you’d make a set on his pocket, and bleed him as you are so precious fond of bleeding me.”

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” said Cousin Thompson laughingly; and then the two men sat smoking and gazing one at the other in silence till their cigars were finished.

“Take another,” said the squire, handing the case lying upon the table.

Thompson took another, and Tom Candlish lit his third, to lie back in his chair, smoking very placidly, and staring from time to time at Thompson, who watched him in turn in a very matter-of-fact, amused way.

They rarely spoke, and when they did it was upon indifferent themes; but by degrees a mutual understanding seemed to be growing up between them, dealing in some occult way with Horace North’s health and his position in Duke’s Hampton. The Manor House estate, too, seemed to have something to do with their silent communings.

This lasted till the lawyer’s second and the squire’s third cigar were finished, and a certain amount of liquid refreshment had been consumed as well. Then Cousin Thompson suddenly threw away the stump of tobacco-leaf he had left.

“Now suppose we finish our bit of business?”

“All right,” said Candlish sulkily; and after reference to certain memoranda laid before him, he opened a secretary, wrote a cheque, and handed it to the lawyer.

“Thanks; that’s right,” said the latter, doubling the slip, and placing it in his pocket-book.

“Going back to town to-night?” said Candlish. “No.”

“To-morrow?”

“No.”

“When then?”

“Depends on how matters turn out,” said Thompson meaningly. “I suppose if I wanted a friend I might depend on you?”

“Of course, of course,” cried the squire eagerly.

“Thanks,” said Cousin Thompson. “I shall not forget, but I don’t think I shall want any help. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Tom Candlish warmly.

A wish of a mutual character, expressed in a contraction – that God might be with two as utter scoundrels as ever communed together over a half-hatched plot.

“Mrs Milt,” said Cousin Thompson, as he entered the Manor that night, “I have been thinking over matters, and you need not say much to your master, but I feel it to be my duty to stay here for the present, and look after his affairs.”

“But really, sir – ”

“Have the goodness to remember who you are, Mrs Milt. Leave the room!”

“And him going about in the dark watches of the night like a madman,” sighed Mrs Milt, as soon as she was alone. “If that wretch sees him, what will he think?”

“That wretch,” to wit, Cousin Thompson, was biting his nails in North’s library, and listening to a regular tramp upstairs.

“Strange thing,” he said, “but as soon as a man’s head is touched, he grows more and more like a four-footed beast.”

He smiled and listened. All was very still now, and he set to work searching drawers and the bureau for material that might be useful to him in the settlement of Horace North’s affairs, and as he searched he talked to himself.

“Let me see: it was Nebuchadnezzar – wasn’t it? – who used to go about on hands and knees eating grass.”

He examined a document or two, but did not seem satisfied with the result.

“Hah! poor Horace!” he said. “I’m very sorry for him, but I must do my duty to society, and to him as well.”

He started, for the door-handle had been touched, and, quick as lightning, he dropped the papers he held, and blew down the chimney of the lamp.

The door cracked, and as it opened slightly he could hear the church clock chiming, and then a deep-toned one boomed forth.

There was a something beside sound entered, for by the faint light which streamed in over the top of the shutters he could see a dark blotch moving slightly, and, as he felt chilled to the marrow, the dark patch changed slowly to a dimly-seen face of so ghastly a kind that he stood there gazing wildly, and fixed helplessly to the spot.

Volume Three – Chapter Nine.

Cousin Thompson’s Tooth-ache

Regularly day after day.

The restless, wild-beast pace went on upstairs with intervals hour after hour, as, for the first time for many years, Horace North felt the terrible side of his lonely life, and the want of some one in whom he could really confide – mother, wife, sister – who would believe in him fully; but there were none.

His life of study had made him self-sustaining until now. He had had no great call made upon him. But now there was the want, and he sat for hours thinking of his state, only to spring up again and tramp his room.

To whom could he fly for counsel – Salis? The old housekeeper? The old doctor in London? Thompson, his cousin, then in the place?

“No, no, no! How could I explain myself? If I told all my feelings, all I have done, they would say that I was mad.

“It is impossible to speak,” he panted.

“I am chained – thoroughly chained.”

He paused in his wearying tramp, for, like a light, there seemed to come in upon him the soft, sweet face of Mary, with her gentle look and luminous eye. She might help him, poor suffering woman. But no, no, no! It was impossible: he could not speak.

The time had come round again when, to relieve the terrible tedium of his life, he went out of his room – waiting always till the house was silent and all asleep.

He opened his door and went out cautiously, to descend to the hall, and after hesitating for a few minutes, he laid his hand upon the fastening of the front door, as if to go out, but shook his head and turned away.

Going silently into the cheerless drawing-room, he paced that, and then the dining-room in turn, till, wearying of this, he crossed to the study to open the door, paused for a moment or two, startled by the loud crack it gave, for the study seemed associated in his mind with the horror of the position he had brought upon himself.

Then, thrusting in his head slowly, it seemed to him that he was at last free, for there before him, embodied for the time, was Luke Candlish rising from a chair, much as we had last seen him at his home; and as he gazed wildly at the face dimly-seen in the dark, it seemed to him the time had indeed come when he could crush his haunting enemy beneath his heel, and, rushing forward, he tried to catch him by the throat.