Left alone, Miss Primby mechanically reverted to her embroidery; but it is to be feared that her doing so was little better than a pretence. She bit her underlip very hard to help her in controlling the nervous emotion which she had much ado not to give way to.
True to her promise, Clara was not more than a few minutes away. When she came back she looked paler than before, but her eyes were extraordinarily bright and luminous.
"Is he safe, Clara? Oh, tell me that he is safe!"
"I hope and trust so; more than that I cannot say. The police may arrive at any moment. You must try to look brave and unconcerned, aunty, dear. You need not speak unless you like, but leave everything to me."
"Very well, dear. I know that I shall be too nervous to say a word.--But what are you going to tell the police?"
"I am going to deceive them.--But oh, aunty, aunty, surely in such a cause I shall be forgiven!"
Suddenly Margery's unkempt head was protruded through the archway. "They've come, mum," she said in a stage whisper.--"They've stuck three men in front of the house and two at the back."
Mrs. Brooke nodded, and the head vanished.
"Now, aunt," said Clara, "let us both try to look as if nothing was the matter." So saying she sat down to the piano and began to play a waltz in a minor key.
Presently in came Bunce, looking very white and scared, carrying a salver with a card on it.
Mrs. Brooke took the card and read aloud: "'Mr. J. Drumley, Superintendent of Police.'--What can he want here at this hour of the evening?" she said.--"You had better show him in, Bunce." And with that she resumed her playing.
She ceased playing, however, when theportièrewas pushed aside and two men came forward, one a little in advance of the other.
As Mrs. Brooke rose and confronted them, the first man made a stiff military bow, while the second carried a couple of fingers to his forehead.
"To what may I attribute the honour of this visit?" asked Clara in her most gracious tones.
Both the men were evidently disconcerted. This pale beautiful apparition with its great shining eyes was something they had not expected to meet.
"You are Mrs. Brooke, I suppose, ma'am?" said the first man after an awkward pause.
Clara smiled assent.
"I am Superintendent Drumley of the King's Harold police, and this is one of my sergeants. But our business is with Mr. Brooke, and not with you, ma'am."
"Quite so. But I hope your errand is not an unpleasant one?"
"I am sorry to say it is a very unpleasant one."
"May I ask the nature of it?"
"If you will excuse me, ma'am, I would rather not enter into particulars--at least not just now. As I said before, our business is with Mr. Brooke. May I ask whether he is at home?"
"He is not at home," answered Clara. "It is a pity you did not arrive a little earlier." She consulted her watch. "My husband left home about five-and-twenty minutes ago. His intention was to walk across the fields to Woodberry Station and catch the up-train to London."
The two men stared at each other for a moment or two and then began to talk in eager whispers. Clara, who was close by the piano, turned over a leaf of music and struck a chord or two in an absent-minded way.
In rushed Margery, panting once more, and to all appearance breathless. She made-believe not to see the two constables. "O mum," she cried, "what do you think? He let me carry his bag all the way through the park, and at the gate he gave me a bright new sixpence. I wanted to carry it to the station; but he wouldn't let me. I wish he had--he'd got more'n a mile to walk. But a new silver sixpence! O crumbs!" Margery ended with one of her most eldritch and uncanny laughs. The sergeant of police, who was rather a nervous man, jumped in his shoes; he had never heard anything like it before.
For a moment Mrs. Brooke stared at the girl in blank astonishment; then a look flashed from Margery's eyes into hers and she understood.
"Of whom are you speaking, girl?" asked Drumley sternly.
"O lor! I didn't see you, sir.--Why, who should I be speaking of but Muster Geril?"
"She refers to my husband, Mr. Gerald Brooke," remarked Clara.
The two men retired down the room a little way and talked together in low tones. "I ain't so sure that this is anything more than a clever dodge," said Drumley, "and that the gent we want isn't still somewhere about. However, you had better take Tomlinson with you and drive as hard as you can to Woodberry Station. The London train will be gone before you get there; but you can set the telegraph to work and make whatever inquiries you may think necessary. You've got the description?"--The sergeant nodded.--"Of course you've got to bear in mind that he may be disguised. Do the best you can, and then hurry back.--Send Simcox to me. I'll have the house thoroughly searched while you are away."
The man saluted and went; and presently Simcox appeared in his stead.
Drumley drew a little nearer Mrs. Brooke. "Without wishing in the least, ma'am, to doubt what you have told me about Mr. Brooke's departure," he said, "I consider it my duty to search the premises."
The piece of music Clara was holding fell to the ground. "To search the premises!" she exclaimed as she stooped to pick it up. She deliberately replaced the music on the piano before she spoke again. Then turning to Drumley with her most dignified air, she said: "You forget, sir, that you have not yet enlightened me as to the nature of your business at Beechley Towers."
"It is my painful duty to inform you, ma'am, that the Baron von Rosenberg was murdered this afternoon in his own grounds at Beaulieu."
"Murdered! The Baron von Rosenberg!" exclaimed both the ladies in a breath.
"O aunty, that was a capital bit of make-believe on your part!" thought Clara to herself. Then, after a pause, to Drumley: "We are excessively shocked, sir, at your tidings. The Baron was a visitor at the Towers, and was highly esteemed both by my husband and myself. Still, you must excuse me for saying that I fail to see in what way this dreadful tragedy connects itself with Mr. Brooke."
"It's a very disagreeable thing for me to have to break it to you, ma'am; but the fact is that Mr. Brooke is suspected of having shot the Baron. The evidence against him is very strong, and--and, in fact, I hold a warrant for his arrest."
"A warrant--for--the arrest of--my husband! You must be dreaming--or--or"---
"Not at all, ma'am. As I said before, the evidence against Mr. Brooke--circumstantial, of course--is very strong. If you would like to see the document"----
"I will take your word for it.--My husband the murderer of the Baron von Rosenberg! Impossible! There is some incomprehensible mistake somewhere."
"I hope so, with all my heart," answered the superintendent drily. "Still, I have my duty to perform."
"Of course. I don't blame you for one moment; I only say there is a grievous mistake somewhere. You wish to go over the house--I think that is what I understood you to imply?"
"By your leave, ma'am."
Without another word Mrs. Brooke rang the bell; then, crossing the room, with her own hands she drew aside theportièrethat shrouded the archway and fastened it back by means of a silver chain. The hall beyond was now lighted up by three or four lamps which shed a chastened radiance over the scene. More lamps lighted up the gallery. The portraits of the dead and gone Croftons, male and female, seemed to have retired further into the solitude of their frames, as though the lamplight were distasteful to them. The leaves of the tropical plants massed here and there shone glossy green; in that softened sheen the helmets and cuirasses of the men-at-arms who kept watch and ward at the foot of the staircase gleamed like burnished silver.
"Bunce," said Mrs. Brooke, when that functionary responded to the summons, "you will be good enough to take a light and show these gentlemen over the whole of the house. You will allow them to enter every room without exception that they may wish to examine. Nothing must be kept back from them." She made a little bow to Mr. Drumley, as dismissing him and his companion, and then composedly re-entered the room.
"Hang me, if I ain't half inclined to think she's humbugging me, after all!" said Mr. Drumley to himself as he followed the majordomo.
Oh, the slow exquisite torture of the half-hour that followed, which seemed, indeed, to lengthen itself out to several hours. To this day, Clara never thinks of it without a shudder. From where she was seated she could see straight across the hall to the staircase beyond; no one could go up or come down without her cognisance.
"Clara, dear, I had no idea you had half so much nerve," said Miss Primby in a whisper.
"Don't speak to me, aunty, please," she whispered back, "or I shall break down." Then to herself: "Will this torture never come to an end!"
It did come to an end by-and-by. Mr. Drumley and his man, preceded by Bunce, came slowly down the staircase. They were met in the hall by two other men who had searched the ground-floor and cellars. It was evident that in both cases their perquisition had been unsuccessful.
A minute or two later in marched the sergeant. His journey to the station had been equally fruitless of results, except in so far as setting the telegraph to work was concerned.
Mrs. Brooke went forward to the group where they stood in the centre of the hall. "Well?" she said interrogatively and with a faint smile. "Have you succeeded in finding Mr. Brooke?"
"No, ma'am; I am bound to say that we have not."
"I hope you have not forgotten what I told you when you first asked for him," was the quiet reply. "But can I not offer you a little refreshment after your arduous duties?"
Mr. Drumley laughed the laugh of discomfiture. "I think not, Mrs. Brooke--much obliged to you, all the same.--Come, lads; it's no use wasting our time here any longer.--Mrs. Brooke, ma'am, I had a very disagreeable duty to perform; I trust you will bear me out in saying that I have tried to carry it out with as little annoyance to you as possible."
"You have been most considerate, Mr. Drumley, and my thanks are due to you."
A minute later the men were gone. Then Mrs. Brooke rang the bell and ordered all the lamps in the hall except one to be extinguished: that one but served, as it were, to make the darkness visible. No sooner was this done and the servant gone, than Margery once more put in an appearance.
"They're gone, mum, every man-jack of 'em; and ain't Muster Drummle in a rare wax 'cos he couldn't find Muster Geril!"
Scarcely had the girl finished speaking, when one of the men in armour at the foot of the staircase stepped down from his pedestal and came slowly forward. Margery fell back with a cry of terror, for not even she had been in the secret.
But Clara, rushing to her husband, pushed up his visor and clasped him in her arms. "Saved! saved!" she cried in a voice choked with the emotion she could no longer restrain.
"For a little while, my darling, perchance only for a little while," was the mournful response.
We are at Linden Villa, a pretty little detached house, standing in its own grounds, in one of the north-western suburbs of London, and the time is the morning of the day after the murder of the Baron von Rosenberg. Two people are seated at breakfast--George Crofton and his wife Stephanie. For, Mr. Crofton's protestations and objurgations notwithstanding at the interview between himself and Clara Brooke, he had thought fit within a month after that date to make an offer of his hand and heart to Mademoiselle Stephanie Lagrange, an offer which had been duly accepted. And, in truth, the ex-queen of theHaute Ecolewas a far more suitable wife for a man like George Crofton than Clara Brooke could possibly have been.
Mr. Crofton presented a somewhat seedy appearance this morning; there was a worn look about his eyes, and his hand was scarcely as steady as it might have been. His breakfast consisted or a tumbler of brandy-and-soda and a rusk: it was his usual matutinal repast. Mrs. Crofton, who was one of those persons who are always blessed with a hearty appetite, having disposed of her cutlet and her egg, was now leaning back in an easy-chair, feeding a green and gold parakeet with tiny lumps of sugar, and sipping at her chocolate between times. She was attired in a loose morning wrapper of quilted pale blue satin, with a quantity of soft lace round her throat, and looked exceedingly handsome.
"Steph, I think I have told you before," said Mr. Crofton in a grumbling tone, "that I don't care to have any of your old circus acquaintances calling upon you here. I thought you had broken off the connection for good when you became my wife."
"Que voulez-vous, cher enfant?" answered Steph without the least trace of temper. "You introduce me to no society; you scarcely ever take me anywhere; four or five times a week you don't get home till past midnight--this morning it was three o'clock when you crept upstairs as quietly as a burglar. What would you have?"
George Crofton moved uneasily in his chair, but did not reply. "Besides," resumed his wife, "it was only dear old Euphrosyne Smith who came to see me. She looks eighteen when she is on thecorde, but she's thirty-four if she's a day. I've known her for five years, and many a little kindness she has done me. And then, although, of course, I shall never want to go back to the old life, I must say that I like to hear about it now and again and to know how everybody is getting on. Can you wonder at it, now that you leave me so much alone?"
"For all that, Steph, I wish you would break off the connection." Then, after a pause: "I know that of late I have seemed to neglect you a little; but if I have done so, it has been as much for your sake as my own."
"Ah, yes, I know: cards, cards, always cards."
"What would you have?--as a certain person sometimes says. I know a little about cards; I know nothing about anything else that will bring grist to the mill. I bought my experience in the dearest of all schools, and if I try to profit by it, who shall blame me?"
"Which means, that you are teaching others to buy their experience in the same way."
"Why not?" he answered with a laugh. "It is a law of the universe that one set of creatures shall prey on another.Iwas very nice picking for the kites once on a time; now I am a kite myself. The law of metempsychosis in such cases is a very curious one."
"I don't know what you mean when you make use of such outlandish words," said Stephanie with a pout.
"So much the better; learned women are an abomination."
At this juncture a servant brought in the morning papers. Crofton seized one of them, a sporting journal, and pushed the other across the table. He was deep in the mysteries of the latest odds, when a low cry from his wife caused him to glance sharply at her. "What's up now, Steph?" he asked. "It would be a libel to say you had touched the rouge-pot this morning, because there isn't a bit of colour in your cheeks."
"What is the name of that place in the country where your uncle used to live?" she asked.
"Beechley Towers."
"And the name of that cousin to whom your uncle left his property?"
"Gerald Brooke--confound him!--But why do you ask?"
For sole reply she handed him the newspaper, marking a certain passage with her finger as she did so. If Mrs. Crofton was startled by something which caught her eye in the paper, her feelings were as nothing in comparison with those of her husband as his keen glance took in the purport of the paragraph in question. It was, in fact, little more than a paragraph in the form of a brief telegram, forwarded at a late hour by a country correspondent.
What the public were told in the telegram was that the Baron von Rosenberg had been found in his own grounds, shot through the heart, about seven o'clock in the evening; that strong circumstantial evidence pointed to the supposition that Mr. Gerald Brooke, a near neighbour of the Baron, was the murderer; that he had disappeared immediately after the perpetration of the crime, and that, although he was still at large, the police had little doubt they would succeed in arresting him in the course of the next few hours.
For a little while, speech seemed powerless to express a tithe of what George Crofton felt when the words of the telegram had burned themselves into his brain. What a sea of conflicting emotions surged round his heart as his mind drank in the full purport of the message and all the possibilities therein implied! What a vista of the future it opened out!
"A little rouge,mon cher, would improveyourcomplexion," said his wife at length, who had been watching him curiously out of her half-veiled eyes. "If one were to judge by your looks, you might have committed the crime yourself."
Her words served to rouse him. "Stephanie, the day of my revenge is dawning at last!" He ground out the words between his set teeth. "This Gerald Brooke--this well-beloved cousin of mine--is the man who came between my uncle and me and defrauded me out of my inheritance."
"And the man who robbed you of the woman you loved, whom you hoped one day to make your wife."
"How do you know that?" he gasped. "I never said a syllable to you about it."
"It matters not how I know it, so long as I do know it," she answered, looking him steadily in the face as she did so, and beginning to tap her teeth with her long pointed nails.
"Well, whoever told you, told you no more than the truth. I did love Clara Danby, and I hoped to make her my wife. But all that was past and gone long; before I met you."
She did not reply, but only went on tapping her teeth the more.
"Putting aside my own feelings towards Brooke," went on Crofton presently, "who has done me all the harm that one man could possibly do to another, don't you see that if he should be arrested and found guilty of this crime, what a vast difference it would make in your fortunes and mine?"
"Expliquez-vous, s'il vous plait."
"Should Gerald Brooke die without issue, by the terms of my uncle's will Beechley Towers and all the estates pertaining to it, including a rent-roll of close on six thousand a year, come absolutely to me--to me--comprenez-vous? Ah, what a sweet revenge mine will be!"
"Yes; I should think it would be rather nice to live at a grand place like Beechley Towers and have an income of six thousand a year," answered Mrs. Crofton quietly. "So, if this cousin of yours is really guilty, let us hope for our own sakes that he will be duly caught and hanged."
Crofton turned to the table, and having poured out nearly half a tumbler of brandy, he drank it off at a draught. Excitement had so far unnerved him that the glass rattled against his teeth as he drank.
"But what could possibly induce a man in Mr. Brooke's position to commit such a crime?" asked Stephanie presently.
"That's more than we know at present; we must wait for further particulars.--By the way, I wonder who and what the murdered man was? The Baron von Rosenberg they call him. I never heard the name before."
"Iknew the Baron von Rosenberg some years ago--in Paris," answered Stephanie with just a trace of heightened colour in her cheeks. "He was a man between forty and fifty years old, and said to be very rich.--I never liked him. Indeed, I may say that I had every reason to hate him. And now he's dead! C'est bien--c'est très bien."
Her husband was only half heeding her. "Stephanie," he said, "I never hated any one as I hate that man. Should the evidence at the inquest, which will no doubt be held in the course of to-day, go to prove, or go far to prove, that Brooke is the assassin, and should the police not succeed in arresting him in the course of the next forty-eight hours, do you know what I have made up my mind to do?"
"How is it possible that I should know?"
"I have made up my mind not to trust to what the regular police may or may not be able to do in this matter, but to employ a private detective on my own account. I happen to be acquainted with a man who is nothing less than a sleuth-hound in such a case as this. He has succeeded more than once when Scotland Yard has failed ignominiously. His services I shall secure; and if it cost me the last sovereign I have in the world, I will do all that man can do to bring Gerald Brooke to the bar of justice."
He spoke with a concentrated malignity of purpose such as he had never exhibited in his wife's presence before. There was an eager, cruel gleam in his eyes, like that of some carnivorous animal which scents its prey from afar. He set his teeth hard when he had done speaking, so that the gash in his lip showed with startling distinctness, and lent to his features an unmistakably wolfish expression.
Stephanie looked at him and wondered. She had flattered herself, as many wives do, that she had read and thoroughly understood her husband; but in this man there were evidently smouldering volcanic forces which might burst into activity at any moment, chained tempests of rage and ferocity which might not always be kept in check, the existence of which she had never suspected before. From that day forward, although her husband knew it not, she regarded him with somewhat different eyes.
He rose abruptly and rang the bell. "Let a hansom be fetched at once," he said to the servant.
"For what purpose do you require a hansom?" asked his wife.
"To drive me to the terminus. I shall go down to King's Harold by the first train. I want to hear for myself the evidence at the inquest on the Baron von Rosenberg."
Gerald Brooke bade farewell to his wife, and quitted Beechley Towers about an hour after midnight. There was no moon; but the clouds had dispersed after the rain, and the stars shone brightly. His object was to make his way to Penrhyn Court, the seat of Sir John Starkie, the justice of the peace who had signed the warrant for his arrest. It seemed like walking into the lion's den; but it was probably the wisest thing he could have done under the circumstances. Penrhyn Court was one of the last places in the world where anybody would think of looking for him. Mr. Tom Starkie had offered to find a secure hiding-place for him for the time being; and after he had once consented to yield to his wife's entreaties and keep out of the way for the present, while awaiting the course of events, it seemed to him that he could not do better than accept his friend's offer. For one thing, he would be on the spot, should anything turn up necessitating his immediate presence; for another, he would be able to communicate with his wife without risk, through the medium of kind-hearted Tom.
Over the parting of husband and wife we need not linger; but it was with a sad heart that Gerald quitted the threshold of the pleasant home where, but such a little time ago, he had looked forward to spending many happy years.
Skirting coppice and hedgerow, and keeping as much as possible in the black shade of the tree; he sped swiftly on his way. The distance from the Towers to the Court was about three miles as the crow flies; and almost as straight as the crow flies went Gerald, taking hedge and ditch and stone wall on his way, and allowing no obstacle to turn him from his course. Once, as he was on the point of emerging from a coppice of nut-trees, he came upon two keepers, armed with guns, who were crossing a meadow not many yards away, evidently on the lookout for poachers. He shrank back on his footsteps as silent as a shadow, and waited for fully ten minutes before he ventured to proceed. Again, at a point where it was necessary for him to cross the high-road, he had a narrow escape from coming face to face with a mounted constable who was riding leisurely along on his solitary round. He had just time to sink back into the hedge-bottom and lie there as motionless as a log till the danger was past.
Mr. Tom Starkie had described the position of his rooms to Gerald, so that the latter had no difficulty in making his way to them. He was to be guided by a lighted window the blind of which showed a transverse bar of a darker shade. As soon as he found this window, Gerald gave utterance to a low whistle. The light was at once withdrawn, as a token that his signal had been heard; and two minutes later he found himself safely in his friend's rooms.
So far all had gone well; but only the preliminary step had been taken as yet. Not a soul in Penrhyn Court but Tom himself must know or even suspect the presence there of Gerald Brooke. But Tom had thought of all this when he first urged his friend to come to the Court, and had in his mind's eye a certain safe hiding-place, known to him and his father alone, where Gerald could lie by and await the course of events. The hiding-place in question was known as "The Priest's Hole," and was an integral part of the oldest portion of the house. A sliding panel in the library, held in its place by a concealed spring, gave admission to a narrow passage built in the thickness of one of the outer walls, down from which access was obtained, by means of a steep flight of steps, to two small chambers hollowed out of the very foundations of the house. These rooms were shut out from all daylight, the walls were unplastered, and the floors of hard dry earth. In the larger of the two was a small fireplace, but without any grate in it, the chimney of which opened into one of the main stacks of the Court. In one corner was a tressel bedstead of black worm-eaten oak, which would seem to indicate that the place had not been without an occasional occupant in days gone by.
The first two hours after Gerald's arrival were spent by Tom in victualling and furnishing this place of refuge. Having encased his feet in a pair of list slippers, his first visit was to the larder, where he requisitioned bread, cheese, butter, tea, coffee, sardines, and sundry other comestibles, greatly to the perplexity of the worthy cook when she came to look over her stores next morning. His next raid had for its objects candles, matches, and crockery. Then came a folding-chair and a spirit-lamp from his own rooms; and so on till he possessed himself of as many articles as he required. Tom took immense delight in these stealthy raids during the small-hours of the morning; and more than once he was compelled to come to a stand with his arms full of things and indulge in a silent laugh, which shook him from head to foot, when he thought of worthy Sir John asleep, and of what his feelings would have been could he have seen how his first-born was just then occupied.
The June sun was high above the horizon before Tom's preparations were completed. It was time for Gerald to vanish like a ghost at cockcrow. The two friends shook hands and parted for a little while; but when Gerald heard the click of the sliding panel as it was pushed back into its place, and when he had shut the door at the bottom of the stairs and had glanced once again round the dismal dungeon that was to be his home for he knew not how long a time to come, he felt as if he were buried alive and should never see daylight again. His heart sank lower, if that were possible, than it had sunk before, and for a few moments he felt as if his fortitude must give way. But this mood was not of long duration; he buoyed himself up with the thought that another day was already here, and that in a few hours more his innocence would doubtless be proved. Presently he lay down on his pallet, utterly worn out in body and mind, and five minutes later was fast asleep.
Of Gerald Brooke's life during the next few weeks it is not needful to speak in detail; indeed, each day that came was so much a repetition of the one that had gone before it, that there would be but little to record. Tom rarely ventured to visit his friend till after his father and the rest of the household had retired for the night. It was a joyful sound to Gerald when he heard the click of the panel and knew that for two or three hours to come he should be a free man. Then through the silent shut-up house the two men would steal like burglars to Tom's room. Once there, they felt safe; for the rest of the family and the servants slept in different wings of the rambling old house. On nights when there was no moon, or when it was overcast, the two friends paced a certain pleached alley of the lower garden for an hour at a time; it was the only exercise Gerald was able to obtain. After that they sat and smoked and talked in Tom's room till the clock struck three, which was the signal for Gerald's return to his dungeon. Twice each week Mr. Starkie rode over to the Towers, acting the part of postman between husband and wife, in addition to that of general purveyor of news.
So day after day passed without bringing the murderer of Von Rosenberg to light or tending in anyway to weaken the force of the circumstantial evidence accumulated against Gerald. It seemed, indeed, as if the police had made up their minds that Mr. Brooke, and he alone, must be the guilty man, directing all their efforts towards his capture, and listening with incredulous ears to such persons as suggested that, after all, it was just possible he might not be the individual they wanted.
"If he isn't guilty, why don't he show up? Why has he gone and hid himself where nobody can find him?" was Mr. Drumley's invariable rejoinder, when any such suggestions happened to be ventilated in his presence. Such questions were difficult to answer.
Many a time during those weeks of slow torture, as he sat brooding in his underground chamber by the dismal light of a couple of candles, did Gerald wish with all his heart that he had not yielded to his wife's entreaties, but had stayed, and braved the thing out to the bitter end.
Clara, meanwhile, was doing all that it was possible for a woman, circumstanced as she was, to do. When a week had passed and nothing tending to prove her husband's innocence had been brought to light, she did that which Mr. George Crofton proposed doing, that is to say, she engaged the services of an experienced private detective. The man came, listened respectfully to all she had to say, and promised that his best endeavours should be at her service; but after his visit, day succeeded day without bringing any ray of comfort to the young wife's aching heart. Could it be possible, she sometimes asked herself, a little later on, that this astute individual, while to all appearance falling in with her views, really believed in her husband's guilt as strongly as Mr. Drumley did, and while quite willing to humour her and spend her money, was in his heart impressed with the futility of looking elsewhere for the criminal It was a weary time, full of heartache in the present, and with a future that began to loom more darkly as day followed day in slow and sad procession.
By-and-by there came a certain night when Tom Starkie met his guest with a very long and gloomy visage. His news was quickly told. His father had suddenly made up his mind to start at once for one of the German spas, and insisted upon Tom's accompanying him. "And if I go, my dear Brooke--and I'm afraid I can't get out of it--what's to become of you?"
"I must flit," answered Gerald with a shrug; "there's no help for it." He almost hailed the prospect as a relief, so unutterably weary was he becoming of the terrible monotony of his present mode of life; but the question of course was, Whither was he to go? At length, after the two men had smoked some half-dozen pipes each, a happy thought came to Gerald. He called to mind that he had another friend on whose secrecy and good faith he could rely, and who, he felt sure, would befriend him in his present strait, if it were in anyway possible for him to do so. The name of the friend in question was Roger Chamfrey.
A few hours later, Tom Starkie set out for London in search of Mr. Chamfrey, whom he fortunately found at his club. The latter had of course read everything that had appeared in the newspapers respecting Von Rosenberg's mysterious death, and Tom found him to be as firm a believer in Gerald's innocence as he himself was.
"I've got the very thing to suit poor Brooke," he said. "The situation of second-keeper is vacant on a certain moor which I rent in a wild and lonely part of Yorkshire and Brooke will be as safe there as he would be in the heart of Africa. I will give him a letter to Timley the head-keeper, who is a very decent sort of fellow, so worded that Brooke shall receive every possible consideration while yet ostensibly filling the part of assistant-keeper. What's more easy than to hint that our friend is a young gentleman of position who has quarrelled with his family, but that in the course of a little time he will come into a large property?" And Mr. Chamfrey laughed.
So the letter in question was written and given to Mr. Starkie, together with many kind messages for Gerald.
Four days later, Gerald reached his new refuge in safety. What means he adopted to escape recognition by the way, and by what circuitous routes he travelled, need not be specified here. It was indeed a wild and desolate tract of country in which he found himself; but in that fact lay his safety. Timley received him kindly; and when he had read and digested his employer's letter, he at once proceeded to turn himself and his wife out of the best bedroom in his cottage, and allotted the same to his new assistant, greatly to the surprise and disgust of his better-half, until he had pacified her by a few sentences whispered in her ear, after which she became all smiles and graciousness, and seemed as if she could not do enough to make Mr. Davis' comfortable. When they were alone, or when no one was within earshot, Timley invariably addressed Gerald as "Sir."
The free open-air life he now led did much towards improving Gerald's health and spirits. Once a week he wrote to his wife, and once a week he received a long letter in return. His letters to her were addressed under an assumed name to be left till called for at the post-office of a little town some dozen miles from the Towers. From this place they were fetched by Margery, who made the journey by rail, and who at the same time dropped a return letter into the box addressed to "Mr. Davis" the keeper.
So time went on till the 12th of August came round, about which date Timley had notice that in the course of the following week his master would arrive accompanied by a number of friends. At the last minute, however, Mr. Chamfrey was detained by important business, and his friends arrived without him. All was now bustle and excitement, and Gerald found quite enough to do. The first and second days' shooting passed off admirably. The weather was perfect, birds were plentiful, and everybody was in high good-humour. Gerald acted his part to perfection--at least Timley told him so. All fear of recognition by any of the visitors had passed away, and on the third morning after their arrival he caught himself humming an air fromLuciawhile cleaning the barrel of his gun outside the cottage door. Hearing a footstep on the garden path, he turned his head quickly, and found himself confronted by a man who had been in his own service only some eight or nine months previously. The two stood staring at each other for a few moments in silence. It was at once evident to Gerald that, despite the change in his appearance, he was recognised. Before either had spoken a word Timley came out of the cottage. Then the man delivered his message, which was from one of the visitors at the Lodge in whose service he now was. Then, after another stare at Gerald, who still went on cleaning his gun, the man turned and went.
Twelve hours later, Gerald Brooke--clean-shaven except for a small moustache which was dyed black, and with a black wig over his own closely cropped hair--was flying southward in the night express. Mr. Starkie, who had returned from the Continent by this time, and to whom he had telegraphed under an assumed name, previously agreed on, met him at the London terminus. The conference between the two friends was a long one. It resulted in Gerald coming to the decision that he would take up his abode in London itself, at least for some time to come, as being, all things considered, as safe a hiding-place as any for a man circumstanced as he was. It was, besides, becoming requisite that some decision should be arrived at with regard to matters at the Towers. Clara was still there; but although she had cut down the household expenses to the lowest possible limits, her supply of ready-money was dwindling away; and when that was gone, where was more to come from? With Gerald's disappearance his income had disappeared too. It was an impossibility for him to draw a cheque, or receive a shilling of rent from any of his tenants, while matters with him remained as they were. Then, again, Clara's long separation from her husband, and the many weeks of anxiety she had undergone, were wearing away both her health and her spirits. "Only let let us be together again, darling--that is all I crave," she wrote to her husband. "Two little rooms in some back street will seem like a palace if only you are with me."
Thus it fell out that on a certain afternoon about a week after Gerald's arrival in London, two ladies, both of them closely veiled, who had been hunting for apartments all morning, and were utterly disheartened and tired out by their want of success, stood for a few moments gazing into a pastry-cook's window in Tottenham Court Road. As she did so, the younger lady raised her veil. Next instant she was startled by hearing some one say in French: "O papa, papa, here is the beautiful lady who gave me the cakes and fruit at that grand house in the country!"
Clara dropped her veil and turned. She recognised the little speaker at once, although he no longer wore his mountebank's dress. There, too, was Picot himself, who had come to a stand a few yards away while he lighted a cigarette.
Tired and anxious though she was, Clara would not go without speaking to the boy. "So you have not forgotten me, Henri," she said, "nor the cakes either? Would you not like some more cakes to-day?"
For answer he lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed it.
When Mrs. Brooke and Henri came out of the shop they found Miss Primby and M. Picot deep in conversation. The mountebank was dressed quite smartly to-day, and had a flower in his button-hole. As Miss Primby said to her niece afterwards: "Although the poor man may be nothing but a tumbler, he is the essence of gallantry and politeness."
After a few words had passed between Clara and Picot, some impulse--she could never afterwards have told whence it originated--prompted her to say to him: "My aunt and I are in London to-day on rather a peculiar errand. We are here to find apartments for--for some dear friends of ours who a little time ago were rich, but who are now very poor. We have been going about all morning, but cannot succeed in finding what we require. It is just possible, monsieur, that you with your knowledge of London may be able to assist us."
"I am entirely at madame's service," answered Picot as he raised his hat for a moment. "Is it furnished apartments that madame requires?"
"Yes--four or five furnished rooms at a moderate rent, and, if possible, not more than a mile from where we are now."
Picot considered for a moment or two, then he said: "I remind myself of a place that will, I think, suit madame. The landlord is a compatriot of my own; he is honest man; he will not cheat his lodgers. If madame would like to see the apartments"----
"By all means, if you recommend them, monsieur."
"Then I will give madame the address." He tore a leaf out of his pocket-book, pencilled down a couple of lines, and handed the paper to Mrs. Brooke with an elaborate bow. At Clara's request he then hailed a passing cab; then both the ladies, having kissed Henri and shaken hands with Picot, were driven away.
Henri, as he stood gazing after the cab, said to his father: "Are the angels as beautiful as that lady, papa?"
"That is more than I can say,mon p'tit," replied the mountebank with a laugh. "When I have seen an angel, I shall be able to tell thee."
In less than a week after her interview with Picot, Mrs. Brooke, her husband, and Miss Primby were settled in their new home. The rooms recommended by the Frenchman had proved more to Clara's liking than any she had seen elsewhere, and she at once engaged them. The furniture and fittings were to a great extent after the cheap and tawdry style so much affected by the inferior class of French lodging-house keepers; but as the whole place was pervaded by an air of cleanliness, such littledésagrémentsas existed in other respects Clara was prepared to overlook.
No. 5 Pymm's Buildings was one of a row of half-a-dozen houses similar to itself in size and outward aspect, situated in a quiet court abutting on a main thoroughfare in the busy and populous district of Soho. All the houses in Pymm's Buildings accommodated a more or less numerous tribe of lodgers, the lower floors being generally arranged in suites of rooms for the convenience of families, while the top floors were usually divided into separate sleeping apartments. And it was in this place and amid such sordid surroundings that the whilom owner of Beechley Towers hoped to find for a little time a secure shelter from the hue and cry of the ten thousand hounds of policedom, each and all of whom were doing their utmost to run him to earth. His idea had been to bury himself in the heart of some densely populated district where one man is but as a grain of sand among ten thousand others, and in so far it may be surmised that he had been successful.
When Mrs. Brooke quitted Beechley Towers secretly and by night to join her husband in London, Margery, faithful Margery, was the only one who was made aware of her departure. The girl pleaded so hard to be allowed to accompany her, that at last Clara was fain to make her a promise that she would send for her as soon as she was settled in her new home. Thus it fell out that Margery was now here, and her mistress found the value of her services in a score different ways. For instance, Margery did all the marketing, and did it for little more than half what it had cost before her arrival. Poor simple-minded Clara, who believed everybody to be as honest as herself, had been imposed upon at every turn; but the shopman or peripatetic vendor who succeeded in "besting" Margery, as she termed it, must have been very wide-awake indeed. The girl would haggle for half an hour over a penny, and her powers of vituperation always rose to the level of the occasion.
What was Mrs. Brooke's surprise about the third day after her arrival at Pymm's Buildings, as she was on her way downstairs, to encounter M. Picot on his way up! Then it came out that the mountebank rented a room at the top of the house which he looked upon as a permanent home, and occupied as such when his avocations did not take him elsewhere. Had Mrs. Brooke been aware of this fact at the time, she might perhaps have hesitated before deciding to take the rooms. And yet, somehow, she had an instinctive feeling of trust in the mountebank--the same sort of trust, although in a lesser degree, that she had in Margery; and after the first tremor of alarm which shot through her when she encountered him on the staircase, she never felt a moment's doubt that her secret, or as much of it as he might know or suspect, was safe in his keeping. It became, of course, necessary to explain to him that it was she and her husband, and not any one else, whose fortunes had changed so woefully. But Picot was one of the most incurious of mortals outside the range of his own affairs. He only remembered Clara as "la belle madame" who had kissed his boy and spoken kindly to him and had laden him with gifts, and about whom Henri often spoke when his father and he were alone. He had never thought of asking any one what her name was; and even now, when he understood from Clara how terribly the circumstances of herself and her husband were changed, he expressed neither curiosity nor surprise in the matter. He wasvraiment désolé--he was heart-broken to think that such should be the case; but that was all. He did indeed, a little later, ask the landlord the name of his new lodgers; and when he was told that they were known as Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, he repeated the name to himself two or three times over, so as to impress it on his memory, and then went contentedly on his way.
The furnished lodgings rented by Mr. and Mrs. "Stewart" comprised three rooms on the first floor and two on the second. As it chanced, the rooms on the ground-floor were at present untenanted. The sitting-room had two windows and was a tolerably sized apartment In it, about eight o'clock on a certain autumn evening, were seated Miss Primby and Margery. The former, as usual, was engaged on some kind of delicate embroidery; while the latter was trying her hand at a little plain sewing, the result being that on an average she pricked her finger once every three or four minutes. But, indeed, the girl was somewhat nervous this evening, or what she herself would have termed "in a pucker." She had had the ill-fortune to break a cup while washing up the tea-things.
"O mum, do you think Mrs. Stewart will let me stay when I tell her? She won't turn me away, will she?"
"Why, of course not, Margery. It was an accident; it cannot be helped."
"Oh, thank you for saying that, mum. Sometimes my fingers seem as if they were all thumbs, and I lets everything drop. But I wants no wages, mum, and I ain't a big eater--leastways, I think not; and I'll eat less than ever now, so as to help to pay for the cup. A crust o' bread and drippin', a few cold taters, and the teapot after everybody else has done with it--that'll do me."
"You must not talk like that, Margery; your mistress would not like it."
"Oh, but you don't know how sorry I am, mum. Mariar--her on the boat--always used to say as I was a great awk'ard lout of a girl; and she was about right there."
The two went on with their work for a little while in silence, and then Margery said: "You'll excuse me, mum, for saying so, but I've often wondered why such a nice lady as you never got married."
The spinster could not help bridling a little. "Married! How absurd of you, Margery," she exclaimed. "From what I have seen of married life, I'm sure I am far better off as I am." Then, as if by way of afterthought: "Not but what I have had several most eligible offers at various times."
"Lor! mum, didn't it make you feel all-overish-like when they went flop on their knees and asked you to marry 'em?"
"Gentlemen don't often go on their knees nowadays. Still, I have had them do that to me more than once. I remember that when Mr. Tubbins, the eminent brewer, did so, he was so very stout that he could not get up again without assistance."
"My! I'd have stuck a pin into him; that would have made him jump," cried the girl with her strange laugh.
At this juncture the door opened and Mrs. Brooke came in. She was plainly dressed in black, and was closely veiled. Since Margery's arrival she rarely ventured out of doors till dusk, and then only when she wanted to do a little shopping such as the girl could not do for her. Any one who had not seen her since that April evening when M. Karovsky's ill-omened shadow first darkened the terrace at Beechley Towers, might have been excused for failing to recognise her again. It was not merely that she looked older by more years than the months which had elapsed since that day--anguish, anxiety, and the dread which never ceased to haunt her of what the next hour might bring forth, had marked their cruel lines on her features in a way that Time's gentle if inexorable graver never does when left to labour alone. The clear dancing light had died out of her eyes long ago; they looked larger and shone with a deeper and more intense lustre than in the days gone by; but a sudden knock at the door, an unusual footfall on the stairs, or the voices of strange men talking in the court below, would fill them on a sudden with a sort of startled terror, just as the eyes of a deer may fill when first it hears the baying of the far-away hounds.
She took off her bonnet with an air of weariness and sat down. "Has not Gerald returned yet?" she said to her aunt "What can have become of him?"
"The evening is so fine that he has probably gone for a longer walk than ordinary."
"It makes me wretched when he stays out longer than usual. And yet, poor fellow! what a life is his. To be shut up in one miserable room from morning till night; never to venture out till after dark, and then only with the haunting dread, that he may be recognised and arrested at any moment! How will it all end?" She sighed and went into the other room. Presently she returned, and a few moments later a knock at the door made every one start. Margery hastened to open it. Outside stood Picot carrying a bunch of flowers. "Bon soir, madame," he said, addressing himself to Clara with a low bow, and then favouring Miss Primby with another.
"Bon soir, Monsieur Picot. Entrez, s'il vous plait."
"Merci, madame," lie answered as he advanced into the room. "I have here a petit bouquet--a few flowers--which Henri has sent for madame, if she will have the bonté to accept them."
"I shall be charmed to do so," answered Clara as she took the flowers. "How fresh and sweet they smell! I am much obliged to Henri, and to you also, monsieur."--The mountebank made another low sweeping bow.--"I hope that Henri is quite well?"
"Parfaitement bien, madame."
"The first time he has a holiday, he must come and take tea with me; I will not forget to have a nice cake for the occasion."
"He will be enchanté, madame.--Ah! if madame could see him on the trapeze--could but see him jumpez from one bar to another--it is splendid, magnifique!"
"I think I would rather not see Henri go through any of his performances, monsieur."
"Mais, madame!" with an expressive shrug; "there is no danger, nothings to be afraid of. Oh, the grand artiste that Henri will be one day! He is twice so clevare as I was at his age. He will be what you call in England great man--big fellow."
"I am very glad to hear it. Meanwhile, you will not forget that he is to come some afternoon and take tea with me."
"Ah, madame, he talk about you every day.--But I go now. I hope that monsieur your husband finds himself quite well?"
"Quite well, thank you, monsieur."
With that the mountebank made his adieus and bowed himself out.
It here becomes needful to explain that just then Henri was engaged at a certain hippodrome as one of a troupe of juvenile acrobats who, under the pseudonym of "les frères Donati," and under the tuition of a celebrated "Professor," were performing a number of well-nigh incredible feats before crowded and enthusiastic houses.
"Ain't he polite!" said Margery as Picot closed the door. "But what a pity the poor man talks such a lot of gibberish."
"What can have become of Gerald?" said Clara for the second time, as she went to the window and drawing aside the curtain peered into the darkness. "I never knew him to be so late before. I cannot help feeling dreadfully uneasy." Then turning to Margery, she said: "Here is a list of things I want you to fetch from the grocer's in Medwin Street. Do you think you can find your way in the dark?"
"Why, of course, mum. I never gets lost, I don't." Half a minute later she ran downstairs, whistling as she went.
The minutes dragged themselves slowly away, and Clara was working herself into a fever of apprehension, when a well-known footfall on the stairs caused a cry of gladness to burst from her lips. "At last!" she exclaimed as she started to her feet and hurried to the door. "How glad I am that you are safely back," she added, as her husband entered the room. "You were away so long that I grew quite frightened."
"The evening was so pleasant, that I extended my walk farther than I intended. I must be a caged bird now for the next four-and-twenty hours. Heigh-ho!"
"Will you not have something to eat?"
"Thanks; nothing at present," he answered as he proceeded to lay aside his slouched hat, his overcoat, and the muffler which had shrouded the lower part of his face. Then he took up a book and sat down in an easy-chair near the fire.
His wife's eyes brimmed with tears as they rested on him. "My poor boy!" she said softly to herself. "This life is killing him. When, oh, when will it end!" She sat down to her needlework.
Miss Primby was the first to break the silence. "Do you know, my dear," she said to her niece, "that Monsieur Picot puts me greatly in mind of the Count de Bonnechose, a French nobleman who once made me an offer of marriage. He used to speak just the same delightful broken English--and then he had such great black eyes, which seemed to pierce right through you, and the loveliest waxed moustaches; so that when he clasped his hands and turned up his eyes till nothing but the whites of them were visible, and murmured 'Mon ange,' and called me his 'beautiful Engleesh mees,' can you wonder that my heart used to thrill responsively?"
Clara could not repress a smile. "I am by no means sure that I should have cared to call that count my uncle."
"It was a mercy that I sent him about his business. He turned out to be no nobleman at all, but only a hairdresser's assistant whose father had left him a little money. But certainly he had remarkably fine eyes."
Again there was a brief space of silence. This time it was broken by a knock which sounded all the more startling because no one had heard the faintest sound of footsteps on the stairs. All three started to their feet and looked at each other. Then, at a sign from Clara, Miss Primby crossed to the door and opened it.
Framed by the doorway and shone upon by the lamplight from within, they beheld the black-clothed figure, the statuesque, colourless face and the inscrutable eyes of M. Karovsky.
"Karovsky--you!" cried Gerald as he sprang forward.
"Yes, I--why not?" said the Russian with a smile, as he raised his hat and came forward.--"Ladies, your servant." Then to Gerald: "You stare at me, mon ami, as if I had just come back from Hades. But this is scarcely the hand of arevenant, if I may be allowed an opinion in the matter."
"It seems incredible that you should have found me out in this place," answered Gerald as the two shook hands.
"Incredible? Peuh! I had need to see you; and I am here."
"Will you not be seated?"
As Karovsky drew up a chair, Clara made a sign to her aunt, and the two ladies passed out through the folding-doors into the room beyond.
"Pardon," said the Russian as he glanced around, "but this place seems scarcely a fit home either for madame or yourself."
"You know that I am in hiding; you doubtless also know that a large reward is offered for my capture?"--The other nodded.--"While such is the case, it is impossible for me to touch a penny of my income. My wife's aunt has lost her property by a bank failure. We are very poor, Karovsky; but there are worse ills in life than poverty."
"Part of my errand to-night is to tell you that I have instructions to place certain funds at your disposal. You can leave this place tomorrow, if it please you so to do."
"Thanks, Karovsky; but I cannot accept a penny of the money you offer me."
"How! Not accept! But this is folly."
"It may seem so to you; but that does not alter the matter."
"It is unaccountable," said the Russian with a lifting of his black eyebrows. "But why remain in these wretched apartments? Why not go abroad--on the Continent--to America--anywhere? The world is wide, and there are places where you would be far safer than here."
"I doubt it One reason why I am here is because I believe this spot--in the heart of one of the most populous quarters of London--to be as safe a hiding-place as any I could find. My other reason is that were I to go abroad, I feel as if I should be throwing away my last faint hope of ever being able to prove my innocence to the world."
Karovsky stared at him in wide-eyed amazement. "How! Your"----
"My innocence of the murder of Baron von Rosenberg."
"Pardon; I fail to comprehend."
"When we parted last, I told you clearly and emphatically that, let the consequences to myself be whatever they might, mine should not be the hand to strike the fatal blow; but when you left me, you evidently did so in the belief that in a little while I should change my mind, and that of the two alternatives you had placed before me, I should choose the one which you yourself would in all probability have chosen had you been in my place. Time went on, and, within the period you had prescribed, Von Rosenberg was found dead, shot through the heart. Such being the case, it was perhaps a not unnatural conclusion for you to arrive at that it was I, Gerald Brooke, who was the assassin.--But I ask you, Karovsky, to believe in the truth of what I am now going to tell you. I had no more to do with the death of Von Rosenberg than you yourself had."
"Est-il possible!" exclaimed the Russian in a voice scarcely raised above a whisper. For a few moments he sat staring silently at Gerald; then he went on: "Not often am I astonished at anything I hear; but you, Gerald Brooke, have astonished me to-night The evidence against you seemed so conclusive, that I never doubted Von Rosenberg fell by your hand. Yet more than once I said to myself:'What an imbecile Brook must have been to leave behind him such a condemnatory piece of evidence as the weapon with which he did the deed!'--But who, then, was the individual who so kindly spared you a necessity so painful?"
"That I know no more than you do."
"C'est un vrai mystère."
"From day to day I live in hope that the real criminal will be discovered and brought to justice; but with each day that passes that hope grows fainter within me."
"I know not what to say.--When I remember the past, and when I look round and think that this is now the home of you and madame"----He spread out his hands with a gesture more expressive than words.
Before more could be said, there came a peculiar knock at the door--three taps in quick succession, followed by a fourth after a longer interval. At the sound, Clara and Miss Primby emerged from the other room.
"That summons is intended for me," said Karovsky quickly as he rose and opened the door.
Then those inside saw that a man, a stranger, was standing on the landing, who seemed to retire further into the shade the moment the light fell on him. He said something rapidly in a low voice to Karovsky, to which the latter replied in the same language. Then the Russian gave a nod as of dismissal, and closing the door, turned and confronted Gerald with a grave face and distended eyes. "That man is one ofus," he said. "When I entered the house, I left him on watch outside. He now comes to tell me that a policeman in plain clothes is on guard outside the court, and that another is stationed inside, so that no one can pass in or out without being observed. He also tells me that there are two more constables in uniform patrolling the street close by; and that from what he can gather, they are waiting the arrival of some one, probably a superior officer. Is it possible, Brooke, that you can be the quarry on which they intend presently to swoop?"
"There can be little doubt of it," answered Gerald, who had risen to his feet while Karovsky was speaking. He had turned very pale; but his lips were firm-set, and the expression which shone out of his eyes was something far removed from craven fear.
Clara stood with one hand resting on the table, her frame trembling slightly. Was the blow she had dreaded so long about to fall at last?
Miss Primby sat down with a gasp.
"Well, let them come," went on Gerald after a moment's pause. "It will be better so. I am tired of this life of hide-and-seek. Why not end it here and now?"
"No, no!" cried his wife. "Even at this, the eleventh hour, there must surely be some way of escape."
"Even if I were eager to escape, which I am not, I know of none."
"Madame is right," said the Russian in his impressive tones. "There is still one way of escape."
"And that is?"----said Gerald interrogatively.
But before Karovsky could reply, Margery, breathless and dishevelled, burst into the room. "O Muster Geril!--O mum," she exclaimed, "the polis is in the court--four or five of 'em, and I believe they're coming here. But I shut and bolted the door at the bottom of the stairs; and it'll take 'em some time to break that down," added the girl with a chuckle.
Picot, who was on his way downstairs as Margery rushed up, had overheard her words, and he could now be seen dimly outlined on the landing, his eyes piercing the obscurity like two points of flame; but for the moment no one observed him.