The Great ImpersonationOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Great Impersonation
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Spy stories
“Ring up the garage,” he directed, “and I shall want one of the men to
go into Norwich to the hospital. Doctor, will you go up and see Lady
Dominey?”
The habits of a lifetime broke down. Parkins, the immaculate, the
silent, the perfect automaton, asked an eager question.
“What is it, sir?”
There was the sound of a window opening overhead. At that moment Parkins
would not have asked in vain for an annuity. Dominey glanced at the
little semicircle of servants and raised his voice.
“It is the end, I trust, of these foolish superstitions about Roger
Unthank's ghost. There lies Roger Unthank, half beast, half man. For
some reason or other--some lunatic's reason, of course--he has chosen to
hide himself in the Black Wood all these years. His mother, I presume,
has been his accomplice and taken him food. He is still alive but in a
disgusting state.”
There was a little awed murmur. Dominey's voice had become quite matter
of fact.
“I suppose,” he continued, “his first idea was to revenge himself upon
us and this household, by whom he imagined himself badly treated. The
man, however, was half a madman when he came to the neighbourhood and
has behaved like one ever since.--Johnson,” Dominey continued, singling
out a sturdy footman with sound common sense, “get ready to take this
creature into Norwich Hospital. Say that if I do not come in during the
day, a letter of explanation will follow from me. The rest of you, with
the exception of Parkins, please go to bed.”
With little exclamations of wonder they began to disperse. Then one
of them paused and pointed across the park. Moving with incredible
swiftness came the gaunt, black figure of Rachael Unthank, swaying
sometimes on her feet, yet in their midst before they could realise it.
She staggered to the prostrate body and threw herself upon her knees.
Her hands rested upon the unseen face, her eyes glared across at
Dominey.
“So you've got him at last!” she gasped.
“Mrs. Unthank,” Dominey said sternly, “you are in time to accompany your
son to the hospital at Norwich. The car will be here in two minutes.
I have nothing to say to you. Your own conscience should be sufficient
punishment for keeping that poor creature alive in such a fashion and
ministering during my absence to his accursed desire for vengeance.”
“He would have died if I hadn't brought him food,” she muttered. “I have
wept all the tears a woman's broken heart could wring out, beseeching
him to come back to me.”
“Yet,” Dominey insisted, “you shared his foul plot for vengeance against
a harmless woman. You let him come and make his ghoulish noises, night
by night, under these windows, without a word of remonstrance. You knew
very well what their accursed object was--you, with a delicate woman in
your charge who trusted you. You are an evil pair, but of the two you
are worse than your half-witted son.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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