Chapter XVI: Part VII (5)

Three days later Pentecost (but not _as_ Pentecost) embarked on a Swedish-American Line steamer. Harker was at the dock getting final instructions (of course he was going in on it as Pentecost knew he would), and there was a vast lot of things to do in a limited time.

The two stood talking on the pier, hidden by piled-up crates and boxes, yet only a short distance from the gangplank so that Pentecost could go on board at the last moment. When they had about finished up matters connected with the London “operation,” Harker happened to think of something.

“Oh—by the way,” he said; “how was that lady you went over to see?”

“Not so well,” Pentecost muttered in a way that suggested aversion to talking about it.

But Harker, not affected by this, cheerfully pursued the subject.

“Going to die?” he asked.

“Had it all fixed to.” (Speaking very shortly.)

“Who? Who do you mean had it fixed?”

“She did.”

“Oh—I see—she wanted to.”

“Yes, and her wanting was _doing_ it. The doctors were hunting some way to shake her up, and left it to me. So I went in and gave her a jolt or two that might change her mind.”

“What did you say?”

“Anything I could grab off the line.”

“Then she’s going to get well, is she?”

“How the hell do I know?”

Pentecost had put an end to the subject with that, but after a silence of some little time, he went on,—and Harker took notice of a most unusual softness in his voice.

“D’you know what I’d do, Hark, if I had it to do again—that is, if I knew what it was that was eating him?”

Harker—surprised at his tone—kept his eyes on him for the answer.

“I’d ’a’ framed that Findlay soak for a twenty-year jack in a nice cool cell, and then staked those two out in the mountains—or wherever it was she had to go.”

“I thought you did know.”

“Not till too late. It was in a letter he left for me with Jamie Dreek.”

The two stood looking at one another.

“Well,” said Harker after a brief silence; “what’s the good of post mortems?”

Pentecost nodded. “What’s the good?” he muttered.

A moment later he was hurrying on board, and with that came the end of this “Pentecost Episode.”

* * * * *

_I take the liberty of adding a brief statement._

H. McC.

Dudley sat smoking heavily and abstractedly after Mr. Barnes had finished a few business details with me, and after shaking hands with both of us, had gone. I was to take a night express for New York, as my time was up. We’d just got it in on the ten-day limit.

I saw that Duds had something on his mind—puffing away at his pipe and staring down at the floor—so, as there was plenty of time before my train I let him alone. He looked up at me after a wink, in the manner of rousing himself.

“D’you know who that was that just went out?” he asked.

“What?—Oh!—Why Barnes of course!”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not Barnes of course, but some one else of course. I’ve been keeping a few tabs on the man that’s been telling us all this stuff, and there’s four things—with a possibility of five—that no one on earth could know but Hugo Pentecost.”

“Good Lord!... Why ... then you think——”

“That’s it—I think.—But I’m going to make sure. He’s in town yet. I’ll drop you a line to-morrow.”

The “line” reached me a couple of days later.

“It _was_ Pentecost,” was the statement it began with. And went on: “That is, I mean it was the man that was—he’s something else now. He’s in business abroad, and taking a steamer from here. His agent (or ‘trusty’ if you like) is going to get the manuscript from you when you write it out. Take my advice and put in all this at the end of the thing. It needs some sort of a finish, and this might do. If he doesn’t like it he can cut it out when he gets the proof—and you can bet he’ll get it.

“Couldn’t make him tell the sort of an enterprise he’s on over there—says maybe he will sometime.

“It seems the girl—Edith Findlay—is making a slow recovery. I asked him how the book would affect her if she got hold of it, and he said it wouldn’t do her any harm by then. ‘And by God!’ he went on, ‘it’s just as well for her to know—now she’s able to stand it—that such a man as Charles Michael Haworth went happily and eagerly to his death, so that she might live. You’d think she might run through her life on that, and ask for nothing more. But probably not.’”

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 358 Changed: faintly wavering in the darknenss
to: faintly wavering in the darkness