"Pardon. I hope I do not intrude?" said M. Karovsky, addressing himself to Mrs. Brooke with the suave assurance of a thorough man of the world. "I saw through the window that Mr. Brooke had returned, and as my time here is limited--me voici." Then advancing a few steps and holding out his hand to Gerald, he added: "It is five years,mon ami, since we last met. Confess now, I am one of the last men in the world whom you thought to see here?"
"You are indeed, Karovsky," responded Gerald as he shook his visitor's proffered hand, but with no great show of cordiality.--"Have you been long in England?"
"Not long. I am a bird of passage. I come and go, and obey the orders that are given me. That is all."
"My wife, Mrs. Brooke. But you have seen her already.--Clara, Monsieur Karovsky is a gentleman whose acquaintance I had the honour of making during the time I was living abroad."
"May we hope to have the pleasure of Monsieur Karovsky's company to dinner?" asked Clara in her most gracious manner, while at the same time hoping in her heart that the invitation would not be accepted.
"Merci, madame," responded the Russian, for such he was. "I should be delighted, if the occasion admitted of it; but, as I said before, my time is limited. I must leave London by the night-mail. I am due in Paris at ten o'clock tomorrow."
"For the present, then, I must ask you to excuse me," said Clara.
Karovsky hastened to open the door for her, and bowed low as she swept out of the room.
"That man is the bearer of ill news, and Gerald knows it," was the young wife's unspoken thought as she left the two together.
M. Karovsky was a tall, well-built man, to all appearance some few years over thirty in point of age. His short black hair was parted carefully down the middle; his black eyes were at once piercing and brilliant; he had a long and rather thin face, a longish nose, a mobile and flexible mouth, and a particularly fine arrangement of teeth. He wore neither beard nor moustache, and his complexion had the faint yellow tint of antique ivory. He was not especially handsome; but there was something striking and out of the common in his appearance, so that people who were introduced to him casually in society wanted to know more about him. An enigma is not without its attractions for many people, and Karovsky had the air of being one whether he was so in reality or not. He was a born linguist, as so many of his countrymen are, and spoke the chief European languages with almost equal fluency and equal purity of accent.
"Fortune has been kind to you, my friend, in finding for you so charming a wife," he said, as he lounged across the room with his hands in his pockets, after closing the door behind Mrs. Brooke. "But Fortune has been kind to you in more ways than one."
"Karovsky, you have something to tell me," said Brooke a little grimly. "You did not come here to pay compliments, nor without a motive. But will you not be seated?"
Karovsky drew up a chair. "As you say--I am not here without a motive," he remarked. Then, with a quick expressive gesture, which was altogether un-English, he added: "Ah, bah! I feel like a bird of ill-omen that has winged its way into Paradise with a message from the nether world."
"Whatever your message may be, pray do not hesitate to deliver it."
But apparently the Russian did hesitate. He got up, crossed the room to one of the windows, looked out for half a minute, then went back and resumed his seat. "Eight years have come and gone, Gerald Brooke," he began in an impressive tone, "since you allied yourself by some of the most solemn oaths possible for a man to take to that Sacred Cause to which I also have the honour of being affiliated."
"Do you think that I have forgotten! At that time I was an impetuous and enthusiastic boy of eighteen, with no knowledge of the world save what I had gathered from books, and with a head that was full of wild, vague dreams of Liberty and Universal Brotherhood."
"The fact of your becoming one of Us is the best of all proofs that the cause of Liberty at that time was dear to your heart."
"But when as a boy I joined the Cause, I was ignorant of much I have learned since that time."
"The world does not stand still. One naturally knows more to-day than one did eight years ago."
"Karovsky, I know this--that the Cause, which, when I joined it, I believed to be so pure in its aims, so lofty in its ideas, so all-embracing in its philanthropy, has, since that time, been stained by crimes which make me shudder when I think of them--has dragged its colours through shambles reeking with the blood of those who have fallen victims to its blind and ferocious notions of revenge."
"Pardon. But can it be possible that I am listening to one who, only eight short years ago, was saturated with philanthropic ideas which seemed expansive enough to include the whole human race--one whose great longing was that every man should be free and happy?--Ah, yes, you are the same--only time and the world have contrived to spoil you, as they spoil so many others. In those days you were poor; now you are rich. Then you had no fixed home; you were a wanderer from city to city; your future was clouded and uncertain. Now, you are the wealthy Mr. Brooke--a pillar of your country: this grand old mansion and all the broad acres, for I know not how far around it, are yours. You are married to one whom you love, and who loves you in return. Away, then, with the wild notions of our hot youth!"
"Karovsky, you wrong me. My love of my fellows is as ardent as ever it was. My---- But why prolong a discussion that could serve no good end? You have a message for me?"
"I have." The man was evidently ill at ease. He rose, crossed to the chimney-piece, took up one or two curios and examined them through his eyeglass, then went back and resumed his seat. "Gerald Brooke," he continued, "eight years ago, on a certain winter evening, in a certain underground room in Warsaw, and before some half-dozen men whose faces you were not permitted to see, you, of your own free-will, took the solemn oaths which affiliated you to that great Cause for the furtherance of which thousands of others have given their fortunes, their lives, their all. From that day till this you have been a passive brother of the Society; nothing has been demanded at your hands; and you might almost be excused if the events of that winter night had come at length to seem to you little more than a half-remembered dream. That you have not been called upon before now is no proof that you have been overlooked or forgotten, but simply that your services have not been required. Other instruments were at hand to do the work that was needed to be done. But at length the day has come to you, Gerald Brooke, as it comes to most men who live and wait."
Gerald had changed colour more than once during the foregoing speech. "What is it that I am called upon to do?" he asked in a voice that was scarcely raised above a whisper.
"You are aware that when an individual is needed to carry out any of the secret decrees of the Supreme Tribunal, that individual is drawn for by lot?"
"And my name"----
"Has been so drawn."
The light faded out of Gerald Brooke's eyes; a death-like pallor crept over his face; lie could scarcely command his voice as for the second time he asked: "What is it that I am called upon to do?"
"The Supreme Tribunal have decreed that a certain individual shall suffer the penalty of death. You are the person drawn by lot to carry out the sentence."
"They would make an assassin of me?--Never!"
"You are bound by your oath to carry out the behests of the Tribunal, be they what they may."
"No oath can bind a man to become a murderer."
"One of the chief conditions attached to your oath is that of blind and unquestioning obedience."
"Karovsky, this is monstrous."
"I am sorry that things have fallen out as they have,mon ami; but such being the case, there is no help for it."
"I--Gerald Brooke--whose ancestors fought at Cressy, to sink to the level of a common assassin? Never!"
"Pardon. Might it not be as well, before you express your determination in such emphatic terms, to consider what would be the consequence of a refusal on your part to comply with the instructions of which I have the misfortune to be the bearer?--Mrs. Brooke is very young to be left a widow."
"Karovsky!"
"Pardon. But that is what it means. Any affiliated member who may be so ill-advised as to refuse to carry out the decrees of the Tribunal renders himself liable to the extreme penalty; and so surely as you, Gerald Brooke, are now a living man, so surely, in a few short weeks, should you persist in your refusal, will your wife be left a widow."
"This is horrible--most horrible!"
"Obedience, blind and unquestioning, the utter abnegation of your individuality to the will of your superiors, is the first great rule of the Propaganda to which you and I have the honour to belong. But all this you knew, or ought to have known, long ago."
"Obedience carried to the verge of murder is obedience no longer--it becomes a crime. However you may put it, assassination remains assassination still."
"Pardon. We recognise no such term in our vocabulary."
"Karovsky, had you been called upon to do this deed"----
"I should have done it. For if there be one man in the world, Brooke, whom I have cause to hate more than another, that man is Baron Otto von Rosenberg!"
"Von Rosenberg!"
"Pardon. Did I not mention the name before? But he is the man."
For a moment or two Gerald could not speak. "It is but half an hour since I parted from him," he contrived to say at last.--"Karovsky, I feel as if I were entangled in some horrible nightmare--as if I were being suffocated in the folds of some monstrous Python."
"It is a feeling that will wear itself out in the course of a little while. I remember---- But that matters not."
"But Von Rosenberg is not a Russian; he is a German ex-diplomatist. What can such a man as he have done to incur so terrible a vengeance?"
"Listen. Four years ago, when attached to the Embassy at St Petersburg, certain secrets were divulged to him, after he had pledged his sacred word of honour that no use whatever should be made of the information so acquired. Wretch that he was! Von Rosenberg turned, traitor, and revealed everything to those in power. In the dead of night, a certain house in which a secret printing press was at work was surrounded by the police. Two of the inmates were shot down while attempting to escape. The rest were made prisoners, among them being three women and a boy of seventeen--my brother. Two of those arrested died in prison, or were never heard of more; the rest were condemned to the mines. On the road, my brother and one of the women sank and died, killed by the dreadful hardships they had to undergo; the rest are now rotting away their lives in the silver mines, forgotten by all but the dear ones they left behind.--You now know the reason why the Baron Otto von Rosenberg has been sentenced to death. The vengeance of the Supreme Tribunal may be slow, but it is very sure."
There was silence for a few moments, then Gerald said: "All this may be as you say; but I tell you again, Karovsky, that mine shall not be the hand to strike the blow."
"Then you seal your own death-warrant"
"So be it. Life at such a price would not be worth having. 'Death before Dishonour' is the motto of our house. Dishonour shall never come to it through me."
Gerald rose and walked to the window. His face was pale, his eyes were full of trouble; what he had said had been lacking neither in dignity nor pathos.
The Russian's cold glance followed him, not without admiration. "English to the backbone," he muttered under his breath. "It was a blunder ever to allow such a man to become one of Us." Then he looked at his watch, and started to find it was so late. "I can stay no longer--I must go," he said aloud. "But remember my last warning words." He took up his hat and moved slowly towards the window.
"Karovsky, for the last time I solemnly declare that this man's death shall not lie at my door!" Gerald sank into a chair, let his elbows rest on the table, and buried his face between his hands.
"I have nothing more to say," remarked the Russian. He stepped through the window, his hat in his hand, and then turned.
At that moment the door opened, and Mrs. Brooke, on the point of entering the room, paused suddenly as her eyes took in the scene before her. "Gerald!" she exclaimed in a frightened voice, and then her gaze travelled from her husband to Karovsky. The latter, with his eyes still resting on the bowed figure at the table, pronounced in low clear accents the one word, "Remember!" Then he bowed low to Mrs. Brooke, and next moment was gone.
Ten weeks, had come and gone since the memorable visit of M. Karovsky to the master of Beechley Towers. It was a pleasant evening towards the end of June. There had been a heavy shower a little while ago; but since then the clouds had broken, and the sun was now drawing westward in a blaze of glory. In the same pleasant morning-room in which we first made their acquaintance, Mrs. Brooke and her aunt, Miss Primby, were now sitting. The latter was dozing in an easy-chair with a novel on her lap, the former was seated at the piano playing some plaintive air in a minor key. The glad light, the light of a happiness that knew no cloud, which shone from her eyes when we saw her first, dwelt there no longer. She looked pale, anxious, anddistraits, like one who is a prey to some hidden trouble. She had spoken no more than the truth when she said that her happiness was too perfect to last.
As the last sad note died away under her fingers she turned from the instrument. "I cannot play--I cannot work--I cannot do anything," she murmured under her breath.
At this juncture Miss Primby awoke. "My dear Clara, what a pity you did not keep on playing," she said. "I was in the midst of a most lovely dream. I thought I was about to be married; my wreath and veil had been sent home, and I was just about to try them on; when you stopped playing and I awoke."
"If I were to go on playing, aunt, do you think that you could finish your dream?"
"No, my dear, it's gone, and the chances are that it will never return," said the spinster with a sigh.
Clara crossed the room, and sat down on a low chair near the window, whence she could catch the first glimpse of her husband as he came round the clump of evergreens at the corner of the terrace.
"I wish you would not mope so much, and would try not to look quite so miserable," said her aunt presently.
"How can I help feeling miserable, when I know that Gerald has some unhappy secret on his mind, of which he tells me nothing. He has been a changed man ever since the visit of M. Karovsky. He cannot eat, he cannot rest; night and day he wanders about the house and grounds, like a man walking in his sleep."
"Bad signs, very, my dear. Married men have no right to have secrets from their wives."
"If he would but confide in me! If he would but tell me what the secret trouble is that is slowly eating away his life!"
"I remember that when the Dean of Rathdrum leaned over the back of my chair, and whispered 'My darling Jane, I'"----
"Here comes Gerald!" cried Mrs. Brooke. She started to her feet, while a glad light leapt into her eyes, and ran out on the terrace to meet him. "What a time you have been away!" she said, as he stooped and kissed her. "And your hair and clothes are quite wet."
"It is nothing," he answered. "I was caught in a shower in the wood."
"Poor fellow! He certainly does look very haggard and dejected," remarked Miss Primby to herself.
"Have you been far?" asked Clara.
"Only as far as Beaulieu."
"You called on the baron, of course."
"No. I changed my mind at the last moment."
"The first bell will ring in a few minutes."
"I have one important letter to write before I dress."
"Then aunt and I will leave you. You will not be long? I am so afraid of your taking cold. Come, aunt."
"Nothing brings on rheumatism sooner than damp clothes," remarked Miss Primby sententiously, as she folded down a leaf of her novel, and tucked the volume under her arm.
Then the ladies went and Gerald was left alone. He looked a dozen years older than he had looked ten weeks previously. All the light and gladness had died out of his face; he had the air of a man who was weighed down by some trouble almost heavier than he could bear. "She is afraid of my taking cold," he said to himself, with a bitter smile as his wife closed the door. "Poor darling! if I were to take cold and have a fever and die, it would be the best thing that could happen either to her or me." He began to pace the room slowly, his hands behind him, and his eyes bent on the ground. "Nearly three months have passed since Karovsky's visit, and nothing has yet been done. Only two more weeks are left me. Coward that I am, to have kept putting off from day to day doing that which I ought to have done long ago. Even this very afternoon, when I reached Beaulieu, I had not the courage to go in and confront Von Rosenberg. My heart failed me, and I turned back. If I have begun one letter to him I have begun a dozen, only to burn or tear them up unfinished; but now there is no time for further delay. I will warn him that if he wishes to save his life he must leave here immediately, and seek some asylum where his enemies will be powerless to harm him. Shall I vaguely hint at some shadowy danger that impends over him? or shall I tell him in plain terms why and by whom the death sentence has been recorded against him? Shall I write to him anonymously, or shall I sign the letter with my name? Better tell him everything and put my name to the letter; he can then act on the information in whatever way he may deem best. In doing this, as Karovsky said, I shall be sealing my own doom. Well, better that, better anything than the only other alternative."
He halted by one of the windows, and stood gazing out at all the pleasant features of the landscape he had learned to know and love so well. "It seems hard to die so young, and with so much about me to make life happy," he sadly mused. "I think I could meet my fate on the battle-field without a murmur--but to be murdered in cold blood--to be the mark for some stealthy assassin! Poor Clara! poor darling! what will you do when I am gone?" He sighed deeply as he turned from the window. His eyes were dim with tears.
Presently he seated himself at the davenport, and drew pen and paper towards him. "No more delays; this very night the baron shall be told. But how shall I begin? in what terms shall I word my warning?" He sat and mused for a minute or two, biting the end of his pen as he did so. Then he dipped the pen into the inkstand and began to write: "My dear Baron, from information which has reached me, the accuracy of which I cannot doubt, I am grieved to have to inform you that your life is in great and immediate peril. You have been sentenced to death by the Chiefs of one of those Secret Societies of the existence of which you are doubtless aware. Your only chance of safety lies in immediate flight."
"What shall I say next?" asked Gerald of himself. "Shall I tell him that"----
But at this juncture the door was opened, and Mrs. Brooke came hurriedly into the room. "O Gerald, such terrible news!" she exclaimed, breathlessly.
Gerald turned his letter face downward on the blotting-pad. "Terrible news, Clara?" he said in a tone of studied indifference. "Has your aunt's spaniel over-eaten itself and"----
"Gerald, don't!" she cried in a pained voice. "Baron von Rosenberg is dead--murdered in his own house leas than an hour ago!"
Gerald rose slowly from his chair as if drawn upward by some invisible force. The sudden pallor that blanched his face frightened his wife. She sprang forward and laid a hand on his arm. He shook it off almost roughly. "Tell me again what you told me just now," he said in a voice which Clara scarcely recognised as that of her husband.
She told him again. "Murdered! Von Rosenberg! Impossible!"
"Dixon brought the news; he has just ridden up from King's Harold."
Gerald sank into his seat again. His eyes were fixed on vacancy. For a few moments he looked as if his brain had been paralysed.
Miss Primby came bustling in. "Oh, my dear Clara, can it be possible that this dreadful--dreadful news is true?"
"Only too true, I am afraid, aunt."
"Poor Baron! Poor dear man! What a shocking end! I never knew a man with more charming manners. Cut off in the flower of his age, as one may say."
"Perhaps, dear, you would like to see Dixon and question him," said Clara to her husband.
He simply nodded. Mrs. Brooke rang the bell and Dixon the groom entered. "You had better tell your master all you know about this frightful tragedy."
The man cleared his throat. Gerald stared at him with eyes that seemed to see far beyond him--far beyond the room in which they were. "I had been down to King's Harold, sir," began Dixon, "to see Thompson, the farrier, about the chestnut mare, and was riding back, when just as I got to the Beaulieu lodge-gates I see the dog-cart come out with Mr. Pringle the baron's man in it, along with Dr. King, and another gent as was a stranger to me. Seeing the doctor there, and that Mr. Pringle looked very white and scared like, I pulls up. 'Anything amiss, Mr. Pringle?' says I, with a jerk of my thumb towards the house, as the dog-cart passed me. But he only stared at me and shook his head solemn like and drove on without a word. Then I turns to the lodge-keeper's wife and sees that she has her apron over her head, and is crying. 'Anything serous amiss, mum?' says I. 'I don't know what you calls serous, young man,' says she, 'but my poor master, the baron, was found murdered in the little shally in the garden only half an hour since--shot through the heart by some blood-thirsty villain.' I didn't wait to hear more, sir, but made all the haste I could home."
No word spoke Gerald. The man looked at him curiously, almost doubting whether his master had heard a word of what he had said.
"Thank you, Dixon; that will do," said Mrs. Brooke. The man carried a finger to his forehead and made his exit.
"Poor dear baron!" remarked Miss Primby for the second time. "There was something very fascinating in his smile."
"Clara, tell me," said Gerald presently. "Am I in truth awake, or have I only dreamt that Von Rosenberg is dead?"
"How strangely you talk, dear. I am afraid you are ill."
"There you are mistaken. I am well--excellently well. But tell me this: ought I to feel glad, or ought I to feel sorry? On my life, I don't know which I ought to feel!"
"Glad? O Gerald!"
"Ah; I had forgotten. You don't know."
"You no longer confide in me as you used to do."
He took no notice of the remark. "Let the Dead Past bury its dead," he said aloud, but speaking exactly as he might have done had he been alone. "No need to send this now," he muttered in a lower tone as he took up his unfinished letter. "If I had but sent it a week ago, would Von Rosenberg be still alive? Who can say?" Crossing to the chimney-piece, he lighted a match and with it set fire to the letter, holding it by one corner as he did so. When it had burnt itself half away he began to whistle under his breath.
"O Gerald!" said his wife in a grieved voice.
"I had forgotten. Pardon--as Karovsky would say."
"I am grieved to say so, dear, but his brain seems slightly affected;" whispered Miss Primby to her niece. "If I were you I would call in Dr. Preston."
Before Clara could reply Bunce came in with a lighted lamp half turned down. He left the curtains undrawn, for a soft yellow glow still lingered over field and woodland.
As soon as he had left the room Mrs. Brooke crossed to the couch on which her husband had seated himself, and taking one of his hands in hers, said: "Dearest, you must not let this affair, shocking though it be, prey too much on your mind. It is not as if you had lost an old and valued friend. Baron von Rosenberg was but an acquaintance--a man whose name even you had never heard six months ago."
His only reply was to softly stroke the hand that was holding one of his.
Clara waited a little and then she said: "Will you not come and dress for dinner?"
He rose abruptly. "Dress for dinner!" he exclaimed with a strange discordant laugh. "How the comedy and tragedy of life jostle each other! Grim death claps on the mask of Momus and tries to persuade us that he is a merry gentleman. Here a white cravat, a dress coat, the pleasant jingle of knives and forks. There, a pool of blood, a cold and rigid form, a ghastly face with blank staring eyes that seem appealing to heaven for vengeance. Yes, let us go and dress for dinner; for, in truth, you and I ought to rejoice and make merry to-night--if you only knew why."
"Gerald, you frighten me."
"Nay, sweet one, I would not do that;" he answered as he drew her to him and kissed her. "I am in a strange humour to-night. I hardly know myself. I could laugh and I could sing, and yet--and yet--poor Von Rosenberg!" He turned away with a sigh.
At this moment in came Mr. Bunce again. "If you please, ma'am," he said to Mrs. Brooke, "here's a strange young pusson come running to the Towers all in a hurry, who says she must see you without a minute's delay."
The "strange young pusson" had followed close on his heels. "Yes, mum, without a minute's delay," she contrived to gasp out, and then she stood panting, unable to articulate another word. She was breathless with running.
"Well, if ever!" exclaimed the scandalised Bunce, turning sharply on her. "Why, you ain't even wiped your shoes."
"That will do, Bunce, thank you," said Mrs. Brooke with quiet dignity.
Bunce sniffed and tried to screw up his nose further than nature had done already. "Sich muck!" was his comment to himself as he left the room.
The person to whom this depreciatory epithet was applied was a girl of some sixteen or seventeen summers, Margery Shook by name, who was dressed in a coarse but clean bib and apron, a short cotton frock considerably the worse for wear, gray worsted stockings, thick shoes, and a quilted sun-bonnet, from under the flap of which her nut-brown hair made its escape in tangled elf-like locks. Her bright hazel eyes had in them more of the expression of some half-tamed animal than that of an ordinary human being. Her features, though by no means uncomely, were somewhat heavily moulded and did not respond readily to emotional expression. For the rest, she was a well-grown strongly-built girl, and when she laughed her teeth flashed upon you like a surprise.
Margery's laugh, if laugh it could be called, was perhaps the most singular thing about her. It was witch-like, weird, uncanny; it never extended to her eyes; it broke out at the most inopportune moments; to have been awoke by it in the dead of night, and not to have known whence it emanated, might have shaken the nerves of the strongest man.
Margery was an orphan, and until she was sixteen years old, had been brought up on a canal barge. It was her boast that she could drive a horse or steer a barge as well as any man between London and the Midlands. But there came a day when the girl could no longer either drive or handle the rudder. Ague had got her in its merciless grip. The barge-man for whom she worked landed her at King's Harold with instructions to a relative of his to pass her on to the workhouse. But before this could be done Mrs. Brooke had found out the sick girl. She was placed in a decent lodging, and the mistress of Beechley Towers paid all expenses till she was thoroughly restored to health. But not only did she do that: she went to see Margery three or four times a week, and eat with her, and talked with her, and read to her, and tried in various ways to let a few rays of light into the girl's darkened mind. Sometimes it happened that Mr. Brooke would call for his wife when she was on these expeditions, on which occasions he would always stay for a few minutes to have a chat with Margery, so that in a little while there was no such gentleman in existence as 'Muster Geril.' But towards Mrs. Brooke her feeling was one of boundless gratitude and devotion; it was like the devotion of a dumb animal rather than that of a rational being. Willingly, gladly would she have laid down her life for her benefactress, had such a sacrifice been required at her hands.
When the girl was thoroughly convalescent it became a question what should be done with her. Clara had extracted a promise from her never to go back to her old life on the canal. About this time it was that the Baron von Rosenberg set up his establishment at Beaulieu. An assistant was required in the laundry; Margery thought she should like the situation, so it was obtained for her.
"Why, Margery, what can be the matter? Why do you want to see me so particularly?" asked Mrs. Brooke.
"It's about him--about Muster Geril," she managed to gasp out. "O mum! the polis is coming, and I've run'd all the way from Bulloo to tell you."
"The what is coming, Margery?"
"The polis, mum," answered the girl with one of her uncanny laughs. Miss Primby, who had never heard anything like it before, gave a little jump and stared at Margery as if she were some strange animal escaped from a menagerie.
"The police, I suppose you mean?" Margery nodded, and began to bite a corner of her apron.
"You must be mistaken, child. What can the police be coming here for?"
"To take Muster Geril."
"To arrest my husband?" Margery nodded again. "What can they want to arrest him for?"
"For murder."
"For murder!" ejaculated both the ladies. There was a moment's breathless pause. Gerald, with one hand on the back of a chair, and one knee resting on the seat, had the impassive air of a man whom nothing more can surprise. He had gone through so much of late that for a time it seemed as if no fresh emotion had power to touch him.
"Great heaven! Margery, what are you talking about?" said Mrs. Brooke with blanched lips.
"They say as how Muster Geril shot the gentleman--the Baron--what was found dead about a hour ago. Not as I believes a word of it," she added with a touch of contempt in her voice. "A pistol set with gold and with funny figures scratched on it, was found not far from the corpus, and they say it belongs to Muster Geril."
"My Indian pistol which I lent to Von Rosenberg ten weeks ago," said Gerald quietly.
"And now the polis have gone for a warrin to take him up," added the girl.
"A warrant to arrest my husband?"
Again Margery nodded. She was a girl who, as a rule, was sparing of her words.
"I, the murderer of Von Rosenberg!" said Gerald, with a bitter laugh. "Such an accusation would be ridiculous if it were not horrible."
Mrs. Brooke wrung her hands and drew in her breath with a half moan. The blow was so overwhelming, that for a few moments words seemed frozen on her lips.
Gerald turned to the window. "Can the irony of fate go further than this," he said to himself, "that I should be accused of a crime for refusing to commit which my own life was to have paid the penalty!"
In came Bunce once more carrying a card on a salver which he presented to his master.
Gerald took it and read, "Mr. Tom Starkie."
"Says he wants to see you very perticler, sir."
"Into which room have you shown Mr. Starkie?"
"Into the blue room, sir."
"Say that I will be with him in one moment. Come, Clara, come, aunt," he said with a smile, as soon as Bunce had left the room; "let us go and hear what it is so 'perticler' that Mr. Tom has to say to me?"
None of them noticed that Margery had stolen out on to the terrace, and was there waiting and watching with her gaze fixed on a distant point of the high-road where it suddenly curved, before dipping into the valley on its way to the little market town of King's Harold. Twilight still lingered in the west, and Margery's eyes were almost as keen as those of a hawk.
The Blue Room into which Mr. Tom Starkie had been shown was at the back of the house, and its windows looked into a quaint old-fashioned garden with clipped hedges and shady alleys. In order to reach this room, visitors had to cross the entrance hall, then proceed along a wide corridor which intersected the house, with doors opening on either hand, after which they found themselves in a second hall almost as large as the first. An archway, from which depended a heavyportièrdivided this hall from the Blue Room. This second hall, which was lighted by a cupola, was hung with a few family portraits, some arms pertaining to various countries and various epochs, together with sundry trophies of the chase.
A broad, shallow, oaken staircase, black with age, led to an upper floor, at the foot of which, on either hand, stood a man in armour with his visor down, grasping in his mailed right hand a lance half as tall again as himself. Tropical plants in tubs were disposed here and there.
Gerald Brooke, pushing aside theportière, advanced and shook hands with his visitor. Mrs. Brooke and her aunt had remained behind. It was just possible that Mr. Starkie might have something of a private nature to communicate to Gerald. "Brooke, what's this confounded mess you seem to have got yourself into?" he began, without a word of preface. He was a red-haired, open-faced, good-natured-looking young fellow of three or four and twenty. "Have you heard that Von Rosenberg is dead, and that you are accused of having murdered him?"
"Yes, I have heard," answered the other quietly. "Is that the affair about which you have come to see me?"
Mr. Starkie looked thunderstruck. "As if by Jove! it wasn't enough! But, unfortunately, there's more behind."
Gerald touched the bell. "There is no reason why my wife and her aunt should not hear anything you have to say," he remarked. "They know already of what I am accused."
When the ladies came in, they shook hands with Mr. Starkie. Clara and he had known each other for years.
Gerald having explained the nature of their visitor's errand as far as he knew it, turned to the young man and said: "And now for your narrative, dear boy; we won't interrupt you oftener than is absolutely necessary."
"I'll cut what I've got to say as short as I can," rejoined the other, "because, don't you know, there's no time to lose." He cleared his voice and drew his chair a few inches nearer Gerald. "About three-quarters of an hour ago," he began, "I happened to be with my dad in his office talking over some private matters, when Drumley, our new superintendent of police, was ushered into the room. He horrified both my dad and me by telling us that the Baron von Rosenberg had been found murdered--shot through the heart in the littlechâletwhich stands in the grounds about a hundred yards from the house; and he shocked us still more by telling us that he had come to apply to my father, as the nearest J.P., for a warrant authorising the arrest of Mr. Gerald Brooke as being the supposed murderer. As soon as my father could command himself, he demanded to know the nature of the evidence which tended to implicate a gentleman like Mr. Brooke in a crime so heinous. Then Drumley, to whom every credit is due for the smart way in which he has done what he conceived to be his duty, adduced his evidence item by item. Item the first was the finding of a curious pistol, inlaid with gold and ivory, which was picked up a few yards from thechâlet. It had been recently discharged, and was recognised by some one at Beaulieu as being, or having been, your property."
"There can be no dispute on that point," said Gerald. "The pistol in question is mine. I lent it to the Baron the last time he was here, ten weeks ago. He wanted it for a certain purpose, and promised to return it in the course of four or five days. As it happened, he was summoned by telegram next day to Berlin, and, as you may or may not know, he only returned to Beaulieu yesterday. Hence the reason why my pistol was still in his possession."
"How unfortunate!" answered Starkie. "But perhaps you had some witness, perhaps some one was there at the time who saw you give the pistol to the Baron?"
Gerald considered for a moment. "No," he said; "we were alone--the Baron and I; no one else was in the room when I gave him the pistol. He would not let me send it over by a servant, but persisted in taking it himself."
"That is more unfortunate still," said the young man. "The next item of evidence was that of two of the Baron's men, who deposed to having seen you making your way through the plantation in the direction of Beaulieu; and to having seen you returning by the same way some twenty minutes or half an hour later, and not many minutes after they had heard the sound of a gun or pistol shot."
"That fact also will admit of no dispute," answered Gerald. "I left home with the intention of calling on the Baron on a matter of importance; but at the last moment I changed my mind and determined to write to him instead. I, too, heard a shot; but as the Baron has a range for pistol-practice in his grounds, I thought nothing of it."
Very glum indeed looked Mr. Starkie. "And now we come to the last item of evidence, which is perhaps the most singular of all. Had you not, a little while ago, a groom in your service of the name of Pedley?"
"I had. About two months ago, I had occasion to discharge him for insolence and insubordination."
"And a few days later he came to you for a character, telling you that he had a chance of getting into the employ of the Baron von Rosenberg?"
"He did; and as I thought he was sorry for his behaviour, I gave him a note to the Baron's man, whose name I don't just now remember."
"The day Pedley came to see you, do you recollect whether you left him alone in the room where the interview between you took place?"
"Now you mention it, I believe I did leave him alone for a couple of minutes while I went into the next room to write the note I had promised him."
"He seems to be a dangerous sort of customer. According to his account, it would appear that during your absence from the room, observing a half-burnt piece of paper in the fender, he took it up and carefully opened it. He had only just time to glance at its contents before you returned; but what he saw was sufficient to induce him to take the paper away with him so as to enable him to decipher it at his leisure."
"May I ask the nature of the contents of the paper in question?" said Gerald, who had turned a shade or two paler in spite of himself.
"When Pedley heard that you were suspected, he spoke to Drumley, and came along with him to see my father. There he produced the half-burnt piece of paper, the contents of which he stated to be in your writing, though how he should be able to speak so positively on the point is more than I can understand. Anyhow, Brooke, if the document should prove to be in your handwriting, it seems a somewhat singular composition, to say the least of it. I had only time to glance hurriedly over it; but from what I could make out, it appears to be a sort of warning addressed to Von Rosenberg, telling him that his life is in great and imminent danger, and that he has been condemned to death; and then there was something about escaping while there was yet time; but the whole thing was so fragmentary, and here and there there were such gaps in the sequence of the sentences, that I may perhaps scarcely have gathered the right sense of what I read. As there seemed to be no time to lose, I did not wait to hear more, but had my mare saddled at once, and rode straight across country, taking everything as it came, in order that I might be the first to bring you the news, bad as it is, and so put you on your guard."
Gerald grasped his hand. "You are a true friend, Starkie, and I thank you from my heart," he said. Then he added: "I trust you will take my word when I say that, however black the evidence may at present seem against me, I am as innocent of this man's death as you are."
"I believe it, Brooke--with all my heart I believe it!"
"Now for an explanation of the half-burnt letter. That it is in my writing I don't for one moment doubt." Mr. Starkie gave vent to a little whistle under his breath. "It is perfectly true that Von Rosenberg's life was in imminent danger. His enemies were powerful and implacable, and nothing short of his death would satisfy them. He was to be assassinated--murdered in cold blood. In what way I came to know all this I am not at liberty to say. The half-burnt paper picked up by Pedley was a letter of warning to the Baron which I never finished, and afterwards, as I thought, burnt to ashes. Von Rosenberg was at Berlin at the time, and I knew that the danger which menaced him lay here, and not there. Finally, I decided not to write to him, but to await his return and seek a personal interview. He reached Beaulieu last night, and this afternoon I made up my mind to call upon him. I had nearly reached the house, when, coward that I was, my heart failed me, and I came back determined that, after all, I would break my news by letter. And now it is too late!"
"But," exclaimed the other, "don't you see that what you have just told me, if told in a court of justice, would only serve to make the case seem a hundredfold blacker against you?"
"I can quite understand that," answered Gerald sadly. "Nevertheless, the truth is the truth, and nothing can alter it."
Mr. Starkie looked at his watch. "I have not a moment to lose," he said. "The police may arrive at any minute, and it would never do for them to find that my father's son had been here before them and given you the 'tip.'"
"Oh, Mr. Starkie, what would you advise Gerald to do? What a horrible accusation to have brought against him!" exclaimed Clara.
"It is that, and no mistake; but it is scarcely in my province, Mrs. Brooke, to advise your husband what to do."
"Supposing you were in his place, Mr. Starkie, what wouldyoudo?"
"Upon my word, I hardly know. On the face of it one must admit that the case looks very black against him, so many bits of circumstantial evidence being piled one on the top of another; but I have no doubt in my own mind that further inquiry will in the course of a few hours go far to substantiate his innocence. In fact, I think it most likely that before this time tomorrow the real murderer will have been arrested."
"Then you would advise?"---- She paused, and looked at him with eyes full of entreaty.
"Well, Mrs. Brooke, I think--mind you, I only say I think--that if I were in Brooke's place would make tracks for a little while.--I beg your pardon," he resumed in some confusion, "what I mean is, that I would be suddenly called from home on business, or pleasure, or what not, so that when the police arrived I should benon est. Only, if you decide to do as I suggest, it must be done without a minute's loss of time. In the course of a day or two or even earlier, the mystery will no doubt be cleared up, and in the meantime Brooke will escape the unpleasantness of being in quod.--I beg your pardon, Mrs. Brooke; I mean in prison."
"You hear, Gerald--you hear!" cried his wife.
Mr. Starkie took Gerald aside and said something to him rapidly in a low voice, to which the other replied by an emphatic shake of his head. "No--no," he said; "I cannot consent to anything of the kind."
"Well, you know best, of course," replied Mr. Tom; "but I think I would if I were you. In any case, I'll not fail to be on the lookout; only, don't forget the directions." Two minutes later he had said his hurried adieus and had ridden rapidly away.
No one spoke till the noise of his horse's hoofs was lost in the distance. A sort of stupor of dismay had settled on the little party. Gerald felt as if he were shut in by a net of steel, which was being slowly drawn round him closer and closer. The mental anguish he had undergone since Karovsky's visit, combined with all the varied and fluctuating emotions of the last few hours, were beginning to tell upon him. It seemed to him as if some hinge in his brain were being gradually loosened--as if the fine line which divides the real from the imaginary and fact front fantasy were in his case being strained to tenuity.
Mrs. Brooke was the first to break the silence. She crossed and sat down by her husband and took one of his hands in hers. "Gerald, dearest, you must fly," she said with a sob in her voice. The eyes he turned on her caused passionate tears to surge from her heart, but with all her might she forced them back.
"Why should an innocent man fly?" he asked.
"You heard what Mr. Starkie said. For a little while it may not be possible for you to prove your innocence, and in the meantime you will escape the ignominy of a jail."
"But if I do not stay and face this vile charge, all the world will believe me guilty."
"No one who knows you can possibly believe that.--O Gerald--husband--my dearest and best--listen to me!"
"Clara, you would make a coward of me."
"Oh, no, no! But consider how strong the evidence is against you. Less than that has brought innocent men to the scaffold before now."
"Come what may, I must stay and face this out."
"Again I say no. A few days, perhaps a few hours even, may bring the real criminal to light. As Mr. Starkie said, you must go on a little journey--a journey where no one can trace you. For my sake, Gerald--for your wife's sake!"
"Oh, my dear boy, do, pray, listen to her," put in Miss Primby, who up to the present had scarcely uttered a word.
"To-morrow will prove my innocence."
"How devoutly I hope so! But can we be sure of it? Days, weeks even, may elapse before the murderer is discovered, and meanwhile what will become of you! Gerald--dear one, think--think!"
"I have thought, Clara. You are asking an impossibility."
"I am asking you to save your life. You must fly--you must hide, but only for a little while, I trust. You must leave me here to help to hunt down the murderer--to fight for you while you are away."
"She speaks the truth, Gerald. Oh, do listen to her!" pleaded Miss Primby with quivering lips.
"Again I say, you would persuade me to act like a coward."
"Let the world call you what it will. While you are in hiding, your life will be safe. Will it be safe if you stay here?"
Before more could be said, Margery burst without ceremony into the room. "O mum, they're coming!" she cried; "the polis is coming! There's five or six of 'em in two gigs."
"It is too late--we are lost!" cried Clara in anguished accents.
"I ran down to the little hill in the park, 'cos it's getting too dark to see very fer,'" continued Margery; "and when I see 'em come round the corner of the road, a quarter of a mile away, I bolted like a hare, and got the old woman at the lodge to lock the gate, and told her not to open it to anybody for her life. It'll take 'em seven or eight minutes longer to drive round by the other gate," concluded Margery with a burst of witch-like laughter.
"Good girl! brave girl!" ejaculated Miss Primby.
"Then there may yet be time," said Clara. She dropped on one knee, and clasping one of her husband's hands, pressed it passionately to her lips. "O Gerald--if you love me--for my sake!" she cried again.
"You are persuading me to this against my will and against my conscience."
"I am persuading you to save your life, which to me is more than all the world besides."
"Be it as you wish," he answered with a sigh. "I feel as if whatever may happen now cannot greatly matter."
Clara rose, and as she did so, a strange eager light leapt into her eyes. "Come with me--quick, quick!" she exclaimed. "I have thought of a plan. Even now there may be time." Then turning to Miss Primby "You will stay here, aunt, will you not? I shall not be more than a few minutes away."
The spinster nodded; her heart was too full for speech. Then Clara, passing an arm through her husband's, lifted theportière, and they went out together.
Margery had already disappeared.