The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [3843]
"Madam, what secret? I pray you to make me acquainted with the whole matter in all its details before you ask my assistance."
"Then you do not know it?"
"Not altogether, and I must know it altogether. First, what has become of the child?"
"She is safe and happy. You have seen her; you mentioned doing so just now."
"Harry?"
"Harry."
I rose before her in intense excitement. What a plot! I stood aghast at its daring and the success it had so nearly met with.
"I've had moments of suspicion," I admitted, after a short examination of this beautiful woman's face for the marks of strength which her part in this plot seemed to call for. "But they all vanished before Mrs. Carew's seemingly open manner and the perfect boyishness of the child. Is she an actress too--Gwendolen?"
"Not when she plays horse and Indian and other boyish games. She is only acting out her nature. She has no girl tastes; she is all boy, and it was by means of these instincts that Mrs. Carew won her. She promised her that if she would leave home and go with her to Europe she would cut her hair and call her Harry, and dress her so that every one would think her a boy. And she promised her something else--that she should go to her father--Gwendolen idolizes Mr. Ocumpaugh."
"But--"
"I know. You wonder why, if I loved my husband, I should send away the one cherished object of his life. It is because our love was threatened by this very object. I saw nothing but death and chaos before me if I kept her. My husband adores the child, but he hates and despises a falsehood and my secret was threatened by the one man who knows it--your Doctor Pool. My accomplice once, he declared himself ready to become my accuser if the child remained under the Ocumpaugh roof one day after the date he fixed for her removal."
"Ah!" I ejaculated, with sudden comprehension of the full meaning of the scrawls I had seen in so many parts of the grounds. "And by what right did he demand this? What excuse did he give you? His wish for money, immense money--old miser that he is!"
"No; for money I could have given him. His motive is a less tangible one. He has scruples, he says--religious scruples following a change of heart. Oh, he was a cruel man to meet, determined, inexorable. I could not move or influence him. The proffer of money only hurt my cause. A fraud had been perpetrated, he said, and Mr. Ocumpaugh must know it. Would I confess the truth to him myself? No. Then he would do so for me and bring proofs to substantiate his statements. I thought all was lost--my husband's confidence, his love, his pleasure even in the child, for it was his own blood that he loved in her, and her connection with his family of whose prestige he has an exaggerated idea. Made desperate by the thought, I faced this cruel doctor--(it was in his own office; he had presumed upon that old secret linking us together to summon me there)--and told him solemnly that rather than do this I would kill myself. And he almost bade me, 'Kill!' but refrained when the word had half left his lips and changed it to a demand for the child's immediate removal from the benefits it enjoyed under false pretenses."
And from this Mrs. Ocumpaugh went on to relate how he had told her that Gwendolen had inherited fortunes because she was believed to be an Ocumpaugh; that not being an Ocumpaugh she must never handle those fortunes, winding up with some such language as this: "Manage it how you will, only relieve me from the oppression of feeling myself a party to the grossest of deceptions. Can not the child run away and be lost? I am willing to aid you in that, even to