The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(80)

                Hugo had not miscalculated. “Luck in their suicides,” Hilda Wade said; and, strange to say, the luck of the Le Geyts stood him in good stead still. By a miracle of fate, his children were not branded as a murderer’s daughters. Sebastian gave evidence at the inquest on the wife’s body: “Self-inflicted—a recoil—accidental—I am sure of it.” His specialist knowledge—his assertive certainty, combined with that arrogant, masterful manner of his, and his keen, eagle eye, overbore the jury. Awed by the great man’s look, they brought in a submissive verdict of “Death by misadventure.” The coroner thought it a most proper finding. Mrs. Mallet had made the most of the innate Le Geyt horror of blood. The newspapers charitably surmised that the unhappy husband, crazed by the instantaneous unexpectedness of his loss, had wandered away like a madman to the scenes of his childhood, and had there been drowned by accident while trying to cross a stormy sea to Lundy, under some wild impression that he would find his dead wife alive on the island. Nobody whispered murder. Everybody dwelt on the utter absence of motive—a model husband!—such a charming young wife, and such a devoted stepmother. We three alone knew—we three, and the children.

                On the day when the jury brought in their verdict at the adjourned inquest on Mrs. Le Geyt, Hilda Wade stood in the room, trembling and white-faced, awaiting their decision. When the foreman uttered the words, “Death by misadventure,” she burst into tears of relief. “He did well!” she cried to me, passionately. “He did well, that poor father! He placed his life in the hands of his Maker, asking only for mercy to his innocent children. And mercy has been shown to him and to them. He was taken gently in the way he wished. It would have broken my heart for those two poor girls if the verdict had gone otherwise. He knew how terrible a lot it is to be called a murderer’s daughter.”



                             I did not realise at the time with what profound depth of personal feeling she said it.


CHAPTER V

                THE EPISODE OF THE NEEDLE THAT DID NOT MATCH

                “Sebastian is a great man,” I said to Hilda Wade, as I sat one afternoon over a cup of tea she had brewed for me in her own little sitting-room. It is one of the alleviations of an hospital doctor’s lot that he may drink tea now and again with the Sister of his ward. “Whatever else you choose to think of him, you must admit he is a very great man.”

                I admired our famous Professor, and I admired Hilda Wade: ’twas a matter of regret to me that my two admirations did not seem in return sufficiently to admire one another. “Oh, yes,” Hilda answered, pouring out my second cup; “he is a very great man. I never denied that. The greatest man, on the whole, I think, that I have ever come across.”

                “And he has done splendid work for humanity,” I went on, growing enthusiastic.

                “Splendid work! Yes, splendid! (Two lumps, I believe?) He has done more, I admit, for medical science than any other man I ever met.”

                I gazed at her with a curious glance. “Then why, dear lady, do you keep telling me he is cruel?” I inquired, toasting my feet on the fender. “It seems contradictory.”

                She passed me the muffins, and smiled her restrained smile.

                “Does the desire to do good to humanity in itself imply a benevolent disposition?” she answered, obliquely.

                “Now you are talking in paradox. Surely, if a man works all his life long for the good of mankind, that shows he is devoured by sympathy for his species.”



                             “And when your friend Mr. Bates works all his life long at observing, and classifying lady-birds, I suppose that shows he is devoured by sympathy for the race of beetles!”