Tranquillity House/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
MR. COOKSON CONFESSES
ANOTHER almost sleepless night ensued for Connie and me. I’d have defied any one to sleep with such an exciting proposition on his hands as we had! I got up in the morning with a terrific headache, and Miss Carstair thought it very unwise for me to try to go to school and advised me to lie down and rest and telephoned Mother to that effect. I think she rather suspected something unusual and upsetting was in the wind anyway, after the curious accident to Mr. Cookson. She couldn’t understand at all how he’d injured himself, for we didn’t explain to her about the secret passage, only telling her he'd had a fall out in the grounds.
I was only too glad to remain on the scene of action, and looked forward impatiently to an interview with Tomkins. He had had to hurry back to the hospital, but planned to return at lunch-time, and, true to his word, arrived just about then. While Miss Carstair was having her luncheon, he came in and re ported to Connie and me. Mr. Cookson had confessed all, during the night, under pressure from Tomkins and in fear of being imprisoned, which Tomkins promised to avert if he could, provided Mr. Cookson would tell the truth. And this is the story he told:
When he had first come into Uncle's employ as secretary and confidential manager of the business, he had not suspected that Uncle had ever had a twin brother nor anything about the unfortunate disappearance. But a few years later, Uncle had told him briefly the mere fact of his having had a brother who had gone away rather suddenly some years be fore without telling any one of his destination and who had remained unheard of ever since. Uncle was certain that he was dead, as he had once in the interval read a description of some unknown man who had met with an accident and been killed. The description seemed to fit his brother, as nearly as he could judge, and he had made many inquiries later into the unknown man's identity without ever coming to any satisfactory conclusion. But he was convinced that it was his brother, and so counted him dead. This was told Mr. Cookson by Uncle in connection with the making of a new will, which seemed necessary, as his former one was concerned mainly with leaving the estate to his brother. Since he felt certain the brother was dead, he intended to make a new disposition of his property.
He intended to leave generous bequests to Tomkins and Beulah, and something more than half the estate to a lady, a Miss Margaret Spence, whom he had once hoped to marry, but who had been found to be more deeply interested in his brother and had never married. But what remained, to Mr. Cookson's great surprise, Uncle proposed to leave to him, as he had proved so faithful and efficient and untiring in his services. Of course, this made Cookson very happy and he began to take an even more absorbing interest in Uncle's business and estate, which would some day be partly his.
A year or so later, Miss Margaret Spence died and Uncle again had to consider altering his will. Mr. Cookson thought surely that Uncle would now make him the sole principal heir, but by that time Uncle had begun to be deeply interested in Connie and me, saying he felt almost as if we were his own nieces, and proposed putting us in Miss Spence's place as heirs to her portion. But Cookson must have been always grasping and mean-spirited in nature, for this did not please him at all, and explains why he was always so unpleasant in manner to us—or, rather, so un-cordial! How he must have disliked us! However, Uncle had delayed making this new will from year to year, and Cookson took care not to remind him of it.
But just about that time a new element entered into the game. While Uncle was away on a long trip to Europe, about ten years before, and Mr. Cookson was managing his affairs here alone, there came this letter from his twin brother, dying in India, and Cookson in his capacity of secretary of course read it. This put an entirely new complexion on the affair. But Mr. Cookson, far from being pleased, was furious that his chance of the big inheritance was gone—or going. And then a great temptation came to him. Uncle was far away and knew nothing of this letter. Why need he ever know? The brother was dying and could never benefit by it anyhow. The children might never survive the Indian climate, which is so hard on growing young people. Moreover, he had said in the latter part of the letter (the part we never saw) that if he received no reply, he would have to take it for granted that his brother was either dead or unwilling to forgive him, and he would let the children remain in ignorance of their real ancestry and name.
This statement decided him. He would destroy the letter and drop the subject forever. And Mr. Benham would never be the wiser. The best that can be said to his credit is that he had many fits of wavering in the matter, for he didn’t become as dishonest as that all at once. Mr. Benham was to be away several weeks longer, and meantime Cookson kept the letter and began a systematic hunt for the secret passage, to satisfy his curiosity and get possession, if possible, of the teawood chest. After much studying of the architecture of the house and exploring of all its nooks and crannies, he stumbled upon the opening to the secret passage, which, it seems, is under a sort of trap-door just in front of the library fireplace. This door swings open at the touch of a secret spring in the bricks of the fireplace, and he learned how to open it, and on exploring the passage discovered the teakwood chest, left down at the other end near the steps.
After a time, and with the aid of many old keys, he managed to open the chest and there discovered all the bonds and jewels that had been missing so long. But just at that time he received word from Uncle that he was re turning unexpectedly, as he was not very well, and would be home the next week. This finally decided old Cookson. He determined to find a new hiding-place for the chest (as Uncle might some time remember and explore the secret passage) and, by testing the wood work, he found a hollow space under the window-seat on the stair and concealed the chest there. But first he locked it, replacing all the papers, just as he had found them. He says he cannot imagine how that letter came to get in among the other things. It was never his intention that it should. He had destroyed the latter part of it and supposed he had torn up and burned it all. That part must have been slipped in among the papers, unrealized by him, for he had to hide it in rather a hurry for fear of being discovered.
He had never since that time had a chance to get the chest from its hiding-place. In fact, it seemed so thoroughly secure that there was no reason to get at it, as he would never want to use those papers or sell the jewels till after Uncle's death. So they had remained, untouched, till Connie's accident. But naturally the spot was very constantly in Cookson’s thoughts! His eyes always seemed to turn to it the first thing whenever he entered the living-room or came down the stairs. On the day of Connie’s accident, when he came in and saw the fresh paint on the woodwork and evidences of it having been disturbed, he was very much alarmed, but until that Sunday night he couldn’t discover whether or not the chest had been found.
He had been almost frantic when he found it missing, and then later he came upon it in Uncle’s room. But he only wrapped it up hurriedly then and, fearing to keep it even in his room, took it out through the secret passage to a lonely spot way off by the river where he could examine it without fear of molestation. Of course when he found it empty he had been deeply alarmed. But, not knowing that the old letter had been in it, he concluded that Uncle had merely found the papers and jewels and had been shocked by having his memory of the painful episode revived. So he had brought it back. After Tomkins called up that night to inquire whether he had seen the chest, and he had, on the spur of the moment, denied ever having seen it, he determined that the safest thing to do was to take the chest away and destroy it, and that was what he had been about to do when I interrupted him getting out of the secret passage.
That is all of his story. Tomkins said he was a completely broken man, now that his duplicity had been discovered, and expected nothing but disgrace, if not actual arrest and imprisonment for his crime.
“But what about those poor children in India!” I cried. “Has he never done any thing at all about them? Did he simply leave them to starve—or to the mercy of strangers?”
Tomkins said that Mr. Cookson had made inquiries, in such a way as not to involve himself, a few months after the letter came. He discovered that Mr. Campbell Mason, a missionary, had died there a few weeks before, leaving two young sons. But in a severe epidemic of plague in that vicinity, soon after, one of the boys had died and the other was still so seriously ill from the effects of it that his death was expected hourly. Mr. Cookson concluded then that, all legal heirs having been removed, there was one less reason for him ever to disclose the secret to his employer. He had never investigated the subject again.
“Tomkins,” I said when he had finished, “what are we going to do about all this?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, miss!” he sighed. “Miss Carstair, here, thinks Mr. Cookson had ought to be took to the hospital, as he’s too sick to remain in the house unattended, and she can’t take care of two. So I’m going to take him in the limousine this afternoon when I go back. I think we’d best let it all rest till Mr. Benham gets better, I do!”
So it was settled. But before Tomkins left, he confided to me that he’d gone out to the old stone bench and cemented up that opening. “There isn’t going to be no more getting in and out of this house in no underhand manner, if I know it!” he had declared, fairly bristling with the thought of former outrages. They got Mr. Cookson down, somehow, into the limousine. I didn’t see him go, for neither Connie nor I felt we could bear ever to lay eyes on him again. And then we were left alone, to talk and think of all the strange and disturbing disclosures of the past twenty-four hours.
“And just to think,” exclaimed Connie, “that Uncle thought so much of us that he wanted to leave us part of his property in his will! I can’t get over it!”
“Well, he never actually did,” I reminded her. “Old Cookson took good care of that! And now, if Uncle were to die, that wretched criminal would get practically the whole of it, for Miss Spence is dead too, now. Not that I care about ourselves,—I couldn’t bear even to think of this place without dear Uncle here,—but I just can’t stand the idea of Cookson coming in for it!”
“Perhaps the will could be broken, after all that’s happened,” speculated Connie. “But, anyhow, Uncle is going to get well, I believe, and then things will be all right. But think how different it all might have been if only Uncle had known about his brother and those two poor little boys! They needn’t have had the plague and would be alive now and—”
At that moment the telephone rang and I went to answer it. It was Mother, telling me that I had been called up by the Western Union Telegraph office in Philadelphia, who said there was a cablegram there for me from India and asked that I come in as soon as possible to receive and pay for it. She was completely mystified by the message (as well she might be!) and demanded to know what it was all about.
All I could think of to tell her was that it was some business of Uncle’s that I was attending to for him. She said she couldn’t quite understand it, and I didn’t blame her, but said that was all I could say about it at present. I asked her if she could bring Ralph over at once and sit with Connie, as Miss Carstair was out and I must go to the city and get the cablegram. She said that of course she would if it were necessary, and I had to leave Connie to smooth out matters as best she could, while I hurried away.