No one spoke for a moment or two after Margery had blurted out her news. Then for the second time Karovsky said: "There is still one way of escape open to you."
And that is?"----said Gerald again.
"For me to personate you."
"O monsieur!" cried Clara, a flash of hope leaping suddenly into her eyes.
"Karovsky, are you mad?"
"Pardon; I think not; but one can never be quite sure. Listen! These men who are coming to arrest you are strangers to you, or rather, you are a stranger to them; they have never set eyes on you before. I will answer to your name; I will go with them; and before they have time to discover their mistake, you will be far away."
"And the consequences to yourself?"
"A few hours' detention--nothing more. Your English police know me not." Then he added with a shrug: "At St. Petersburg or Berlin, ma foi, it might be somewhat different."
"Karovsky, your offer is a noble one, and the risk to yourself might be greater than you seem to think. In any case, I cannot accept it."
"Gerald, for my sake!" implored his wife.
"As I said before, I am tired of this life of perpetual hide-and-seek. Let it end; I am ready to face the worst."
"No, no! Would you court a felon's doom, you whose innocence will one day be proved to the world?"
"Vous avez raison, madame," said the Russian. Then placing his hands on Gerald's shoulders, he said: "Go, Brooke, my friend; hide yourself elsewhere for a little time, and leave me to face these bloodhounds."
Picot, who had been listening and watching in the background, now came boldly forward. It was enough for the kind-hearted mountebank to know that his friends were in trouble. "I have une petite chambre en haut," he said to Gerald. "Come with me, monsieur, and I will hide you."
"Yes, yes; go, dearest, with Monsieur Picot," urged his wife, her beautiful eyes charged with anguished entreaty.
"For your sake, let it be as you wish," answered Gerald sadly.
At this juncture there came a loud knocking at some door below stairs.
"Venez, monsieur--vite, vite!" said Picot.
Gerald hastily kissed his wife, gripped the Russian's hand for a moment, and then followed the mountebank.
"It will not be wise to keep our friends waiting," said Karovsky. Then turning to Miss Primby: "Madame, will you oblige me by taking charge of these trifles for a little while?" With that he handed her a card-case, a pocket-book stuffed with papers, and a bunch of keys.
"They will be mighty clever if they get them out of here," muttered Miss Primby as the articles disappeared in the capacious depths of some hidden pocket.
The knocking was repeated in louder and more imperative terms than before.
"Let the door be opened," said Karovsky to Margery; then he addressed a few words hurriedly in a low tone to Mrs. Brooke.
The door at the foot of the stairs, which Margery in her alarm had taken the precaution to fasten, had apparently been originally put there with the view of more effectually separating the upper part of the house from the lower, probably at a time when the domicile was divided between two families. This door Margery now unbolted without a word; and without a word, after flashing a bull's-eye in her face, a sergeant of police and two men pushed past her and tramped heavily upstairs.
"Mr. Gerald Brooke, commonly known by the name of Stewart?" said the sergeant interrogatively as he advanced into the room, while his two men took up positions close to the door.
The Russian turned--he had been in the act of lighting a cigarette at the fireplace. "Who are you, sir, and by what right do you intrude into this apartment?" he demanded haughtily.
The sergeant went a step or two nearer and laying a hand on his shoulder, said: "Gerald Brook; you are charged on a warrant with the wilful murder of the Baron Otto von Rosenberg on the 28th of June last at Beaulieu, near King's Harold, and you will have to consider yourself as my prisoner."
The Russian dropped his cigarette. "There is some strange mistake," he said. "I never either saw or spoke to the Baron von Rosenberg on the 28th of last June."
"All right, sir; you can explain about that somewhere else; but I should advise you to say as little as possible just now."
One of the men had advanced into the room, and now drew the officer's attention. "I say, sergeant," he whispered, "the gent don't seem to answer much to the printed description, does he?"
"Idiot!" whispered back the other; "as if a man couldn't dye his hair and make his beard and moustache grow any shape he liked! Besides, we knew beforehand that he was disguised, and this is the room where we were told we should find him."
When the sergeant turned again, Clara was standing before Karovsky with a hand resting on each of his shoulders.
"You see," whispered the sergeant to his subordinate. "We were told his wife was living here with him, as well as an elderly lady--the aunt. He's the gent we want, and no mistake."
"I shall only be away for a little while, cara mia," said Karovsky, as he drew Clara to him. For a moment her head rested against his shoulder, then his lips lightly touched her forehead.
She turned from him, and sinking on a couch, buried her face in her hands.
Karovsky drew himself up to his full height "Now, sir, I am at your service," he said to the sergeant.
A moment later, and the three women were left alone.
"They be clever uns, they be!" said Margery with a chuckle as the sound of the retreating footsteps died away.
"How noble, how magnanimous of Monsieur Karovsky!" exclaimed Miss Primby. "I shall never think ill of the Russians again."
"Now is the opportunity for Gerald to get away," said Clara. "The police may discover their mistake at any moment." Her hand was on the door, when suddenly there was a sound which caused all three to start and stare at each other with eyes full of terror. It was the sound of unfamiliar footsteps ascending the stairs. Mrs. Brooke shrank back as the door opened and George Crofton entered the room. "You!" she gasped.
"Even so," he answered as he glanced round the room. "It is long since we met last."
"Not since the day you crushed my husband's portrait under your heel."
"As I have now crushed your husband himself."
"What do you mean?"
"Clara Brook; the hour of my revenge has struck. You slighted me once, but now my turn has come. It was through my efforts that your husband was tracked to this place. It was I who gave information to the police. Never could there be a sweeter revenge than mine."
"Can such wickedness exist unsmitten by Heaven!"
After that first glance round, he had never taken his eyes from Clara's blanched face. He spoke with a venomous intensity which lent to every word an added sting.
"Don't I just wish I was a man, instead of a great hulking good-for-nothing girl!" muttered Margery, half to Miss Primby and half to herself, as she defiantly rolled up the sleeves of her cotton gown.
For a little space, the two stood gazing at each other in silence.
Clam's heart beat painfully, but her eyes blazed into his full of scorn and defiance. Then she said: "George Crofton, believe me or not, but my husband is as innocent of the crime laid to his charge as I am. It is not he who is a murderer, but you who are one after this night's work--in heart if not in deed."
A sneering laugh broke from his lips. "I was quite prepared to hear that rigmarole," he said. "It was only to be expected that you should swear to his innocence. It is possible you may believe in it--wives will believe anything."
But Clara's ears, of late ever on the alert, had heard a certain sound. With a low cry she sprang to the door; but before she could reach it, it was opened from without, and Gerald, accompanied by Picot, appeared on the threshold.
Crofton fell back as if he had seen a face from the tomb. "By what fiend's trick have I been fooled?" he cried.
"There stands the villain who betrayed you," exclaimed the young wife, pointing to Crofton with outstretched finger.
"He! My cousin! Impossible."
"It may not be too late yet," exclaimed Crofton as he sprang to one of the windows and tore aside the curtain. But next instant, with a bound like that of a tiger, Picot had flung himself on him and had gripped his neck as in a vice with both his sinewy hands. The other was no match in point of strength for the mountebank; and before he knew what had happened he found himself on his back on the floor, half-choked, with Picot kneeling on his chest and regarding him with a sardonic grin.
Clara, with a natural impulse, had clung to her husband's arm. Miss Primby and Margery were too startled to utter a word.
Picot's hand went to some inner pocket and drew from it a small revolver; then rising to his feet, he said to Crofton: "Oblige me by standing up, monsieur, and by taking a seat in that chair, or in one leetle minute you are a dead man."
Crofton, with a snarl like that of some half-cowed wild animal, did as he was bidden.
Gerald stepped quickly forward and laid a hand on Picot's arm. "What would you do?" he asked.
"Shoot him like the dog he is, if he move but one finger. If he move not--tie him up--gag him--and leave him here till you, monsieur, have time to get away."
Then addressing himself to Margery, but without taking his eyes for an instant off Crofton, he said: "My good Margot, in my room upstairs you will find one piece of rope. Bring him here. Dépêchez-vous--quick."
Margery needed no second bidding.
Then the mountebank said to Gerald: "You must not stop here any longer, monsieur; the police may come back at any moment."
"Yes--come, come," urged Clara. "Another minute, and it may be too late."
"George, I did not deserve this at your hands," said Gerald with grave sadness to his cousin. The only answer was a scowl and an execration muttered between his teeth.
Gerald, his wife, and Miss Primby retired into the farther room and closed the folding-doors. Margery was back by this time, carrying a small coil of rope.
"Good child.--Now hold this--so," said Picot, as he placed the revolver in Margery's hand and stationed her about a couple of yards from Crofton. "If you see that man stir from his chair, press your finger against this leetle thing, and--pouf--he will never stir again. Hold him steady--so. You have no fear--hein?"
"Why, o' course not," laughed Margery. "It would do me good to shoot the likes o' him."
With a dexterity that seemed as if it might have been derived from long practice, Picot now proceeded to bind Crofton securely in his chair.
"You scoundrel! you shall suffer for this," muttered the latter between his teeth.
"A la bonne heure, monsieur," responded the mountebank airily. Then perceiving a corner of a handkerchief protruding from his pocket, he drew it forth, and tearing a narrow strip off it, he proceeded to firmly bind the other's wrists; then making a bandage of the remainder, he covered his mouth with it and tied it in a double knot at the back of his neck. "Ah, ha! that do the trick," he laughed. "How found you yourself? Very comfortable--hein?"
Margery, who had watched the operation with great glee gave back the revolver and retired to the inner room. Picot sat down a little way from his prisoner, but for the present took no further notice of him. He had heard a footstep on the stairs a minute or two previously, and rightly judged that Gerald was already gone.
From the first day of taking up their abode at No. 5 Pymm's Buildings, Clara and her husband had prepared themselves for an emergency like the present one. They were always ready for immediate flight, and had arranged the means for communication in case of an enforced separation.
At the end of a few minutes Margery returned, carrying a folded paper, which she gave to Picot, at the same time whispering a few hurried words in his ear. The mountebank nodded and smiled and kissed the tips of his fingers. Then the girl went back, and the two men were left alone. But presently both of them heard the footsteps of more persons than one descending the stairs. Picot listened intently till the sound had died away, and then proceeded to light a cigarette. Of Crofton, sitting there, bound and gagged, he took not the slightest apparent notice.
A quarter of an hour passed thus, and with the exception of a footfall now and then in the court below no sound broke the silence. At the end of that time, Picot's cigarette being finished, he rose, pushed back his chair, clapped his hat on his head, and after a last examination of his prisoner's bonds, he marched out of the room without a word, and so downstairs and out of the house, first shutting behind him the door which divided the upper rooms from the ground floor.
Left alone, George Crofton began at once to struggle desperately to free himself, but all to no purpose. After a little time, however, he discovered that the chair in which he was bound moved on casters, and this discovery put an idea into his head such as would not have entered it under other circumstances. The room was lighted by a lamp on a low table, and to this table he managed by degrees to slide his chair along the floor. Then setting his teeth hard, and stretching his arms to the fullest extent his bonds would allow of his doing, he held his wrists over the flame of the lamp, and kept them there unflinchingly till the outermost coil of the ligature which bound them was burnt through. When once his hands were at liberty, very few minutes sufficed to make him a free man.
"My revenge is yet to come, Gerald Brooke," he said aloud as he paused at the door and took a last glance round. "It is but delayed for a little while, and every day's delay will serve but to make it sweeter at the last."
We are back once more at Linden Villa. It is a March evening, and the clock has just struck nine. George Crofton is smoking a cigar, and gazing fixedly into the fire, seeing pictures in the glowing embers which are anything but pleasant ones, if one may judge by the lowering expression of his face. He looks haggard and careworn, and is no longer so fastidious with regard to his personal appearance as he used to be. Dissipation has set its unmistakable seal upon him; he has the air of a man who is going slowly but surely downhill.
His wife is amusing herself somewhat listlessly at the piano. There is a slightly worn look about her eyes, and the line of her lips looks thinner and more hard set than it was wont to do. Married life had not brought Stephanie the happiness, or even the content, she had looked forward to. The awakening had come soon, and had not been a pleasant one. Not long had it taken her to discover that she had mated herself with an inveterate gambler, if not with something worse. So long as plump young pigeons were to be had for the plucking, matters had gone on swimmingly at Linden Villa. There had been no lack of money, and Stephanie had never cared to inquire too curiously how it had been come by. But after a time Crofton's wonderful luck at cards began to be commented upon; people began to be shy of playing at the same table with him; pigeons were warned to avoid him; and when, one unfortunate evening, he was detected cheating at the club, and unmasked by a member cleverer in that particular line than himself, his career in that sphere of life came to an end for ever. But his ambition had not been satisfied with the comparatively small gains of the card-table; he had bet heavily on the St. Leger and other races, and had been unfortunate in all. So far he had been able to meet his racing liabilities, but the doing so had exhausted the whole of his available resources, and matters at Linden Villa had now come to a pass that might almost be termed desperate.
Stephanie brought her roulades to an end with a grand crash; then turning half round she said in her clear metallic tones: "Have you anything to talk about, mon ange? Have you nothing to say to me?" Her husband's back was towards her as he sat brooding sullenly in front of the fire. "It is not often that you stay at home of an evening, and when you do--chut! I might as well be alone."
He shrugged his shoulders. What would you have me talk about? Our debts--our difficulties--our"----
"Why not?" she broke in quickly. "If you talked about them a little oftener, it might be all the better. You seem neither to know nor care anything about them. You are out from morning till night. It is I who have to promise, to cajole, to lie, first to one person and then to another who come here demanding money when I have none to give them. Oh, it is a charming life--mine! N'importe. It will end itself in a little while."
"What do you mean? What new trick are you hatching now?" he demanded.
"It is nothing new--it has been in my head for a long time. Shall I tell you what it is? Why not?" The fingers of one hand were still resting on the piano. She struck a note or two carelessly, and then went on speaking as quietly as though she were mentioning some trifling detail of everyday life. "One evening, cheri, when you come home you will not find me; I shall be gone. This life suits me no longer. I will change it all. I will go back to the life I used to love so well. I have had a letter. Signor Ventelli is at Brussels; he prays to me to return to him. I shall go. You and I my friend, can no longer live together. It will be better for both that we should part." Again her fingers struck a note or two carelessly.
Crofton was roused at last. He started to his feet with an imprecation and faced his wife. "What confounded stuff and nonsense you are talking, Steph," he exclaimed. "As if I believed a word of it!"
"Do I ever say that I will do a thing when I do not intend doing it?" she quietly asked.--In his own mind he was obliged to confess that she did not.--"We have made a mistake, you and I, and have found it out in time," she resumed. "We can be friends, always friends--why not! But you will go your way, and I mine; that is all."
The cold indifference of her tone and manner stung him to the quick. Evidently she was minded to cast him off as carelessly as she would an old glove. The sullen fire in his heart blazed up in a moment. He loved this woman after a fashion of his own, and was in nowise inclined to let her go. "What you say is utter nonsense. I would have you remember that you are my wife, and that I can claim you as such anywhere and everywhere."
"And do you imagine that if I were twenty times a wife I should allow you or any other man to claim me as such against my will!" demanded Steph with a contemptuous laugh. "Tza! tza! my friend, you talk like a child."
They were standing face to face, and for a few moments they stared at each other without speaking; but the clear resolute light that shone out of Steph's eyes cowed, for a time at least, the fitful, dangerous gleam flickering redly in her husband's bloodshot orbs, as though it were a reflection from some Tophet below.
George Crofton turned away, and crossing to the sideboard, poured himself out a quantity of brandy. "You would be a fool, Steph, to leave me as you talk of doing, were it only for one thing," he said dryly. He seemed to have quite recovered his equanimity, and was choosing a cigar as he spoke.
"If it pleases me to be a fool, why not?"
"Has it never occurred to you that any morning the newspapers may tell us that my cousin, Gerald Brooke, has been captured? Every day, that is the first news I look for."
"Ah, bah! you mock yourself. Your cousin will never be arrested now; he has got safe away to some foreign country long ago."
"You have no ground for saying that. Any hour may bring the tidings of his capture, and then---- But you know already what the result of his conviction would be to you and me. Beechley Towers and six thousand a year--nothing less."
"You deceive yourself," resumed Steph. "You are waiting for what will never happen. Nine months have passed since the murder, and the crime is half forgotten. You let Gerald Brooke slip through your fingers once; but you will never have the chance of doing so again.--Let us come back to realities, to the things we can touch. Dreams never had any charms for me."
He went back to the fireplace with his cigar, and took up a position on the hearthrug. "As you say--let us stick to realities; it may perhaps be the wisest," he went on. "What, then, would you think, what would you say, if I were to tell you as a fact that in less than six weeks from to-day I shall be in possession of ten thousand pounds?"
"I should both think and say that it was not a fact, but a dream, a--what do you call it?--a Will-o'-the-wisp."
"And yet it is not a dream, but a sober solid fact, as a very short time will prove."
She raised her eyebrows; evidently, she was incredulous. "Yon made sure that you would win two thousand pounds at Doncaster, whereas you contrived to lose five hundred. You were just as certain that you would win"----
"What I am referring to now has nothing to do with horseracing," he broke in impatiently.--"Listen!" he added; and with that he planted himself astride a chair and confronted her, resting his arms on the back of it and puffing occasionally at his cigar as he talked. "I am about to tell you something which it was my intention not to have spoken about till later on; but it matters little whether you are told now or a month hence." He moved his chair nearer to her, and when he next spoke it was in a lower voice: "The young Earl of Leamington, who is enormously rich, is to be married on the 27th of next month. On the 14th of April one of the partners in a certain well-known firm of London jewellers, accompanied by an assistant, will start for the Earl's seat in the north carrying with him jewelry of the value of over twenty thousand pounds, for the purpose of enabling his lordship to select certain presents for his bride. That box of jewelry will never reach its destination."
Stephanie was staring at him with wide-open eyes. "You would not"----she exclaimed, and then she paused.
"Yes, I would, and will," he answered with a sinister smile. "I and certain friends of mine have planned to make that box our own. The whole scheme is cut and dried; all the arrangements in connection with the journey are known to us; and so carefully have our plans been worked out, that it is next to impossible that we should fail."
"And you, George Crofton, my husband, have sunk to this--that you would become a common robber, a thief, a voleur!"
His face darkened ominously, and the gash in his lip looked as large again as it usually did. "What would you have?" he asked with a snarl. "My cursed ill-luck has driven me to it. I cannot starve, neither will I."
For a little while neither spoke.
"I didn't think you would take my news like this, Steph," he said presently. "Think of the prize! How is it possible for a man fixed as I am to resist trying to make it his own? One half comes to me because the plan is mine, but of course I can't work without confederates. My share will be worth ten thousand at the very least; and then, hey presto for the New World and a fresh start in life with a clean slate!--What say you, Steph?"
"At present, I say nothing more than I have said already," she answered coldly. "I must have time to think."
Cummerhays, in one of the most northerly of the northern counties of England, although it considers itself to be a place of no small importance, has not the good fortune to be situated on any of the great main lines of railway; consequently, to most people it has the air of being somewhat out of the world. Of late years, however, a branch line has found it out, and has thereby enabled it to emerge from the state of semi-torpor in which it seemed destined to languish for ever. The branch line in question, of which Cummerhays is the terminus, is about twenty miles in length, and leaves the main line at Greenholm Station. About halfway between the two places, but about a couple of miles distant from the line itself, are certain important collieries, to meet the requirements of which a secondary branch has been constructed, which turns abruptly from the main branch at a point dignified with the euphonious title of Cinder Pit Junction. Here a signalman's box has been fixed, a wooden erection, standing about six feet above the ground, with an arrangement of levers inside it, for working the points and signals in connection with the traffic to and from the collieries. At the time of which we write two men were stationed at the box in question, who came on duty turn and turn about, in each case a week of day-duty alternating with one of night-duty. The cottage of one of the signalmen was about half a mile from the box, on the road leading to the collieries; while that of his "mate" was about a quarter of a mile down the road in an opposite direction.
Into this second cottage, which stood by itself in a lane a little removed from the high-road, and having no habitation near it, we will venture, Asmodeus-like, to take a peep on a certain April evening. It was already dusk in the valleys, although a soft rosy light still made beautiful the tops of the distant fells.
In half an hour James Maynard, the signalman, would be due at his box to take his "spell" of night-duty. His thick blue overcoat was hanging behind the door ready to put on, his wife was washing up the crockery, and Maynard himself was smoking a last after-tea pipe before leaving home. He was a well-built stalwart man, with a jet-black beard and moustache, and close-cut hair of the same colour, to which his dark-blue eyes offered a somewhat striking contrast. He had been about three months in his present situation, and among the drivers and guards who worked the traffic between the junction and the collieries he had come to be known by the sobriquet of "Gentleman Jim." It was not that he ever set himself up as being in anyway superior to or different from his mates; indeed, he was universally popular; but these grimy-faced men, who in their way are often keen observers of character, had an instinctive feeling that, although necessity might have made him one of them to outward seeming, he was not so in reality, and that at some anterior time his position in life must have been widely different from that which he now occupied. But genial and good-natured though "Gentleman Jim" might be, he was a man who brooked no questioning, and no one thereabouts knew more about him than he chose to divulge of his own accord.
Maynard and his wife had been chatting pleasantly together. Suddenly the latter laid a hand on her husband's arm to bespeak his attention.
"What is it?" he asked. "I heard nothing."
"There was a noise of wheels a moment ago, and now it has ceased. It sounded as if some vehicle had stopped suddenly at the end of the lane. Do you remain in the background, dear, while I go and ascertain whether any one is there."
She opened the door and went out quickly. There was still light enough in the valley to see objects a considerable distance away. One side of the lane in which the cottage was built was bounded by a high bank. Up this Mrs. Maynard now clambered, assisted by the branch of a tree; she knew that from the top of it she could see not only the lane, but a considerable stretch of high-road on either hand. After gazing for a moment or two, she leaped lightly down and ran back to the cottage. "A carriage with two horses is standing at the corner of the lane," she said to her husband. "A lady has got out of it, and is coming towards the cottage, and--oh, my dear--I'm nearly sure it's Lady Fanny Dwyer."
"Lady Fan! Well, I shall be very glad to see her. No doubt she is visiting at Seaton Park; and as she knows we are living in the neighbourhood, she must have made inquiries and discovered our whereabouts."
"I hope she has not made her inquiries in such a way as to arouse any suspicion that we are at all different from what we seem to be?"
"I think you may trust Lady Fan for that. She generally knows pretty well what she is about.--But had you not better go and meet her?"
Clara hurried to the door; but as she opened it, Lady Fan appeared on the threshold. She looked a little white and scared, adventures with a spice of risk or romance in them not being in her usual line. Making a step forward and grasping Clara's hand, she said in a whisper: "Is it safe to speak aloud? Is there any one but yourselves to hear me?"
Reassured on this point, Lady Fan threw herself into her friend's arms and burst into tears, holding out a hand to Gerald as she did so. "I can't talk to either of you till I have had my cry," she said between her sobs. "What a wicked, wicked world this is!"
She grew calmer in a little while, and sat down close to Clara, holding a hand of the latter while she talked.
Here it may be remarked that it was through the influence of Lady Fan's husband that Gerald Brooke had obtained his present situation as signalman at Cinder Pit Junction. The mode of life was of his own choosing. He wanted something to do that would take him out of himself as much as possible, and while not entirely isolating him from his fellow-men, would not bring him into contact with too great a number of them. In this out-of-the-way valley among the fells and moors, if anywhere, shelter and safety might surely be found.
"O my dear, my dear," cried Lady Fan as she dried her eyes and looked round her, "and has it really come to this, that this dreadful poky little hole of a place is your home--the only home that you have!"
"It is not a dreadful little hole by any means, dear Lady Fanny," answered Gerald with a smile. "It, is a substantial well-built cottage of four rooms--quite large enough for a family without encumbrances. You don't know how snug and comfortable we are in it. Economy of space is not half enough considered in a small world like ours."
"I am glad you keep up your spirits," retorted her ladyship; "though how you contrive to do so under such circumstances is a mystery to me."
"We have really and truly been very comfortable since we came here," answered Clara. "I have conceived quite an affection for our little house, and somehow, I hardly know why, I feel as if we were safer here than elsewhere. Probably it is the loneliness of the place that gives one this feeling of security; and then the air that blows down from the moors is so pure and invigorating that both Gerald and I feel as if we were growing young again."
"Oh, of course you try to make the best of everything--it's just your aggravating way," retorted Lady Fan. "But if I were in your place, I should fret and fume and worry, and make myself and everybody about me as miserable as possible. That would be my way."
"I don't believe it," answered Gerald with a laugh. "You don't know how many unsuspected qualities you possess that go towards making a capital poor man's wife."
Lady Fan shrugged her shoulders. "And so you, Gerald Brooke, the owner of Beechley Towers, are living here as a common railway signalman," she said; "finding your companions among a lot of engine-drivers and--shunters, don't they call them?--and grimy people of that kind. What is the world coming to!"
"My companions may be grimy, as you say; but I can assure your ladyship that they are a very hard-working, good-hearted, decently behaved set of fellows, and that among them is more than one of whose friendship any man might be proud. And I can further assure you, Lady Fanny, that I am quite satisfied with my mode of life--for the present and till brighter days return, if they ever will return. And that reminds me that I have had no opportunity of thanking Dwyer for the trouble he must have been put to in procuring me my present situation. Is he here with you?"
"Oh dear, no. His last letter was dated from Cairo; where his next will be dated from, goodness only knows."
"Well, I hope you won't forget to thank him for me when next you write."
"By the way, how did you succeed in finding us out?" asked Clara.
"To tell you the truth, my dear, one of my chief objects in accepting an invitation to Seaton Park was the hope of seeing you and your good-for-nothing signalman. I knew you were living close by, but not exactly where. I also knew that you were passing under the name of Maynard. Accordingly, I set my maid to work to make certain inquiries, telling her a white fib in order to stifle any curiosity she might feel in the matter; in fact, my dear Clara, I gave her to understand that before your marriage you had been in my service, and that I was desirous of ascertaining how you were getting on in life. It was the most likely tale I could think of, and I've no doubt it answered its purpose; anyhow, this morning Simpkins brought me your address, and here I am."
"How it brings back the memory of old times to see you and hear your voice!" said Clara. "It seems years since I left the Towers, although it is only a few short months ago. I am often back there in my dreams."
Lady Fan squeezed her friend's hand in silent sympathy. Then she said: "By-the-by, what has become of darling, quaint Miss Primby? I hope she is quite well?"
"She has gone to stay for a time with some friends in Devon. This place was too bleak for her during the winter months; but now the spring is here, she will be back with us again before long."
"You talk as if you were likely to remain here for ever and a day," answered Lady Fan. "And that reminds me that I have done to-day as our sex are said to do habitually with their postscripts--that is, I have left mentioning till the last the most important of the reasons which brought me here. Algy, in the last letter I had from him, charged me to either see or communicate with you as early as possible, and tell you from him that his banker is at your service for any amount you choose to draw upon him. He has a lot of money lying idle, and would only be too glad if you would favour him by making use of it."
"Dwyer is a noble-hearted fellow, I know, but"----
"But me no buts," broke in her impetuous ladyship. "There is no reason why you should not end this mean and sordid way of life at once. There are plenty of charming nooks on the Continent where you and Clara might live with everything nice about you while waiting for better days; and really you would be doing Algy a great kindness at the same time."
But this was a point on which Gerald was not to be moved. He combated Lady Fanny in almost the same terms that he had combated Karovsky when the Russian had made him an almost identical offer. He would never leave England, he said--on that he was determined--till the mystery that enshrouded Von Rosenberg's death should be cleared up and his own fair fame vindicated before the world. There was within him a hidden faith that, like an altar flame, sometimes burnt high and anon died down to a mere spark, but was never altogether extinguished, that one day his long waiting would be rewarded.
Lady Fan fumed and lost her temper, and then recovered it again with equal facility, but in nowise shook Gerald from his purpose. The striking of the hour startled them both.
"Eight o'clock and Sir William's horses waiting for me all this time!" exclaimed Lady Fan.
"And I'm a quarter of an hour late," said Gerald to his wife. "Lucas will begin to think something has happened to me."
Lady Fanny's last words to her friend were: "To-day is Tuesday. I'll come again on Thursday, when we will have a good long talk together, by which time I hope that obstinate and wrongheaded husband of yours will have come to his senses."
Gerald Brooke had kissed his wife and had gone off to his duty at the signal-box, leaving her alone in the cottage. But not long would she be left in solitude. Margery, who had gone to Overbarrow, a village about two miles away, to purchase some groceries, would be back in a little while.
But half an hour passed after her husband's departure without bringing Margery, and Clara began to grow seriously uneasy. Never had she been so late before. When the clock struck nine and still the girl had not come, Clara could contain herself no longer. Putting on her bonnet and shawl and locking the door, she hurried down the lane, and turning into the high-road in a direction opposite that which led to the railway, she went quickly forward along the way by which she knew Margery must come. The night was dark and moonless, but the stairs shone clearly, and by their faint light Clara could just discern the black outlines of the hedge which bounded the road, and thereby keep herself to the line of narrow turf-bordered footway which ran by its side. She had not gone more than a quarter of a mile when her heart gave a throb of relief. She heard footsteps advancing towards her, and her fine ear recognised them as those of Margery, even while the latter was some distance away. "Is that you, Margery?" she called, so that the girl might not be startled by coming suddenly upon her in the dark. A moment later they had met. Margery had been hurrying home at such a rate as to be nearly breathless.
"O mum, he's here! I've seen him, and heard him speak," were the girl's first incoherent words.
"Who is it that you have seen and heard?"
"Muster Crofton, mum--Muster Geril's cousin--him as the Frenchy tied up in his chair."
"George Crofton here!" murmured Clara, her heart seeming to turn to ice as she spoke. "Surely, surely, Margery, you must be mistaken."
"I only wish I was, mistress," responded the girl fervently; "but he only need speak for me to pick him out of a thousand men in the dark. Besides, I saw his face with the cut in his lip and his teeth showing through."
For a little while Clara was so dazed and overcome that she could neither speak nor act. In that first shock her mind had room for one thought and one only: George Crofton was on the track of her husband! No other purpose could have brought him to this out-of-the-world place. Gerald must be warned and at once; but first she must hear all that the girl had to tell. She had turned mechanically, and was now retracing her way to the cottage.
"I suppose Mr. Crofton saw you at the same moment you saw him?" she said anxiously.
"I saw him, but he never set eyes on me."
"How could that happen?"
"I'll tell you all about it, mum. I had got my groceries and had left the village and was coming along pretty fast, 'cos I was a bit late, when just as I was getting near the end of a lane I hears two men coming along it talking to one another. I was not a bit a-feared; but still I thought I might as well keep out of their sight; so just before they turned out of the lane, I slipped into the dry ditch that runs along the hedge-bottom and crouched down. They passed me without seeing me, still talking, and then I knowed at once that one of 'em was Muster Crofton. 'We are before our time,' says he to the other one; 'we shall have nearly an hour to wait.' Then says the other: 'Better be afore our time than after it.' After going a bit up the road, they crossed it, and passing through a stile, got into the fields, I making bold to skulk after 'em, first taking off my shoes so as they shouldn't hear me. On they went, I following, till they came to a hollow where there's a lot of trees, and in the middle of the trees a little house that seems, as well as I could make out, as if somebody had pulled it half to bits and then left off. When they were well inside, I followed on tiptoe; and then I heard one of 'em strike a match, and then I saw a light through the broken shutter of a little window. Going up to the window, I peeped in. Two lanterns had been lighted, and by the light of one of 'em I could see Muster Crofton's face quite plain. I couldn't make out much of what they talked about, only that they were waiting for somebody, and once the other man said: 'We shall be quite time enough if we leave here by half-past ten.' Then Muster Crofton, he swore, and said that he never could a-bear waiting."
"Did you hear them mention your master's name?" asked Clara anxiously.
"No, mum, not once."
Clara was puzzled. To her wifely fears it seemed impossible that Crofton's presence should not bode danger to her husband. It was almost incredible that he should be there unless he were on the track of Gerald. Yet, on the other hand, what could be the nature of the business which took him at that late hour to a ruined cottage buried among trees? It almost looked as if he were concerned in some dark and nefarious scheme of his own. Suddenly a fresh thought struck her, and as it did so she came to an abrupt halt.
"Margery," she said, "you shall show me the way back to the cottage among the trees. I will go and endeavour to find out for myself what it is that has brought Mr. Crofton so far away from home. Come."
"O mistress!" said Margery with a gasp. It was her only protest: with her to hear was to obey.
Varley's Cottage, which place George Crofton and his confederates had fixed upon as their rendezvous, was a spot of ill repute for miles around, and one which no inhabitant of the district would willingly go near by day, much less after dark. A grim tragedy centred round the spot. Some quarter of a century previously the cottage had been the home of a certain gamekeeper, Varley by name, who had made himself specially obnoxious to the poachers of the district. One night he was shot dead on his own threshold and his cottage fired in two places. The crime was never brought home to any one, neither was the cottage ever rebuilt. But of all this neither Clara Brooke nor Margery, being newcomers in the neighbourhood, knew anything.
The elder woman hurried feverishly onward, the younger leading the way. Scarcely a word passed between them. Presently they reached the stile through which Margery had followed the two men, and crossing it, took a winding footway through the fields. They went swiftly and silently, walking not on the path itself but on the soft grass which bordered it. Not a creature did they see or hear, and before long the path began to dip to a hollow, then came some straggling patches of brushwood, and presently they were in the spinney itself, with trees and a thick undergrowth on both sides of them. Margery led the way as by a sort of instinct, only pausing for a second now and again to listen. To Clara, the adventure, with its darkness, its silence, and its mystery, had all the complexion of a nightmare. Again and again she had to ask herself whether it were indeed a reality.
"We are nearly there now, mum," said Margery presently in a whisper. "Do you wait here among the trees, while I creep forward and try and find out what they be about." So saying, the girl stole forward, and was at once lost to view.
The young wife waited with a heart that beat high and anxiously. The moments seemed terribly long till Margery returned, although in reality she was not more than three or four minutes away. Clara trembled so much that she could not speak.
"There's four of 'em now, mum," said the girl. "I could see them quite plain through the crack in the shutter, and from what I could make out, there's more to come. O mistress, I wouldn't go near 'em if I was you; they're a desperate bad lot, and if they found you there, nobody can tell what might happen."
Of a truth, Clara might well hesitate, and it was only the thought that some new and unforeseen danger might possibly at that very moment be closing like a net round the husband she loved so devotedly that nerved her to the task she had set herself to do. "Margery," she said after a brief silence, "where you can go with safety I can surely go. I must see and listen to these men for myself.--Now, attend to this. Should I be discovered by them, or should anything happen to me, you will fly as for your life and warn your master."
"I understands, mum, never fear," was the girl's earnest response.
Then the two crept together through the trees, almost as silent as the shadows of which they seemed to form a part, and presently Clara found herself under the walls of the ruined cottage. Margery guided her to where a rickety shutter still guarded a small square window, from which, however, the glass had long since disappeared. Through a chink in this, the interior of the room, such as it was, was plainly discernible. Two old-fashioned lanterns threw a dim weird light over the scene. Clara's eyes sought instinctively for the face of Crofton before taking any note of the others; it may be that some faint hope had all along lingered in her breast that Margery had been mistaken. But if that were so, the hope at once died out. George Crofton himself was before her. He was the only one of the party that was seated, and his seat consisted of nothing more than a pile of loose bricks, with part of the stone shelf of the mantel-piece laid across them. He was smoking, as were also two of the others, and seemed deep in thought. The rest of the party were utter strangers to Clara; they talked in low tones among themselves, and, much to her surprise, she saw that one of them was in the garb of a clergyman.
Scarcely had Mrs. Brooke noted these things, when a low whistle sounded from somewhere outside. Crofton sprang to his feet, and all were instantly on the alert. The whistle was answered by another from within, and then one of the men left the cottage carrying a lantern. Clara and Margery sank noiselessly back into the undergrowth of bush and bramble by which the cottage on three sides was surrounded.
When, two or three minutes later, Clara ventured to resume her post of observation at the window, she found that the party inside had been augmented by two fresh arrivals. The men had now grouped themselves round Crofton in various attitudes of attention, listening to the instructions he was evidently impressing upon them. Whatever the objects of this strange company might be, there could be little doubt that George Crofton was the leader of it. One man, who bent forward a little, had made an ear-trumpet of his hand, and it might be for his benefit that Crofton now pitched his voice in a higher key than he had previously done. Clara hardly breathed as she strained her senses to catch the words that fell from his lips.
What she heard, gradually piecing the plot together in her own mind as Crofton issued his final orders to the men, was enough to blanch the heart of any woman with terror and dismay. The train to Cummerhays was to be attacked and robbed; some great treasure--Clara could not make out of what nature--was to travel by it to-night, which these desperadoes had determined on making their own. As a preliminary step, the signalman at Cinder Pit Junction was to be seized, bound, and gagged, his box taken possession of, and the telegraph wires cut. A member of the gang who answered to the name of Slinkey, and who understood the manipulation of points and signals, would install himself in the box. Then, when the train came up on its way to Cummerhays, passing the box at a speed of about twenty miles an hour, by a reversal of the points it was to be turned by Slinkey on to the branch leading to the collieries. As a matter of course, the driver would bring his train to a stand as speedily as possible, and then would come the opportunity of the gang. It was well known that, except at holiday times, passengers and officials together by this train rarely numbered half a score people. It would be strange if half-a-dozen desperate men, armed with revolvers, could not so far intimidate the driver, the guard, and a few sleepy passengers as to have the whole train at their mercy. Five minutes would suffice to successfully achieve the object they had in view, after which the train might go on its way again as if nothing had happened.
Such were the chief features of this audacious scheme, as gathered by Clara from Crofton's instructions to the others. Of course, each man had known beforehand what he was expected to do, and what passed at the cottage was merely a sort of final rehearsal of the scene that was to follow.
Crofton now looked at his watch and announced that it was time to start. The lanterns were extinguished, and the men filed silently out of the cottage, half of them taking one road and half another. Clara and Margery had but just time to draw their shawls over their heads and crouch on their knees amid the brushwood, when three of the men passed within as many yards of them. When all was silent again, they stood up. Never on any previous occasion when danger threatened her husband had Clara felt so utterly helpless as she did now. What could she, one weak woman, do to confound the machinations of six armed and desperate men?
"O Margery," she cried, seizing both the girl's hands in the extremity of her distress, "there seems no help either in heaven or on earth. We are lost--lost!"
The faithful girl could only kiss with a sob the hands that held her own. "What be they going to do, mistress?" she asked a moment or two later. She had not been able to see and hear what had passed in the cottage, as Clara had done.
"They are going to seize and bind your master, and then they are going to stop and rob the train. O Margery, if there was but some way by which the train could be warned in time! Think, think; is there nothing we can do?"
"Why, o' course there is, mum," answered the girl with one of her uncanny chuckles. "You just let me run home as fast as my legs'll carry me and get three or four singles--them things, you know, that Muster Geril used to fasten on the rails when the fog was bad in winter. I know how to fasten them, 'cos I watched Muster Geril do it one day when I took him some to the box. Then I'll take the short cut across the fields to where the line turns sharp round more'n half a mile away from the box, and I'll fix the singles there.--But what am I to tell the driver, mum, when he stops the train?"
"Tell him there are half-a-dozen men with revolvers who are going to stop and rob the train, just beyond your master's box. After that, he will know what it will be best to do." She could have flung her arms round Margery's neck and kissed her, such a weight had the girl's words lifted off her heart.
"But what about pore Muster Geril, mum?" urged Margery.
Ah, what indeed! Clara shivered as though an icy wind had struck her. She had not failed to notice that her husband had never been mentioned by name by Crofton, who had spoken of him to the others as though he were an utter stranger. Could it be possible he was unaware that Gerald filled the position of signalman at Cinder Pit Junction. It was possible, but by no means probable; but in that faint chance lay her only hope of her husband's safety. In that case, should he and Crofton not encounter each other, the rest of the gang would merely regard Gerald in the light of an ordinary railway servant; and although he might chance to be assailed and maltreated by them, that would be but a minor evil in comparison with the other, and one which an hour or two at the most would set right. These thoughts passed through her mind far more rapidly than she could have given them utterance in words. The only question now was, had she time to warn her husband before the attack took place? The gang were on their way already: could she overtake them, pass them unseen, and reach the signal-box before they did? The chance was a desperate one, but she must attempt it--no other course was open to her.
"Come!" she said, grasping Margery by the hand. "Let us hurry--let us hasten! While you go and fix the signals, I will go and warn your master, only pray heaven I may not be too late!"
With scarcely a word more they sped swiftly back along the starlit fields; but when they reached the stile, Clara said: "Is there no nearer way to the signal-box than going round to it by the high-road?"
"There's a way through the fields, that cuts off a big corner. I've walked it onst; but I dunno, mum, as you could find it in the dark."
"I must try," answered Clara desperately. Every second was precious.
The near cut in question was through a second stile somewhat farther on. At this point, after a few last words, the two parted, each going a separate way.
Clara's way led her through more fields; but the track was so faint that she was utterly unable to distinguish it, and had to trust to her vague local knowledge that she was going in the right direction. In a little while she surmounted a rising ground, and then, to her utter dismay, she saw, from the position of the signal lamps in the valley below, that she had wandered a full quarter of a mile too far to the right of them. It was a thousand chances to one now that Crofton and his crew would be there before her.
Anguish lent wings to her feet, and she flew down the slope like a creature pursued by the Furies. She could see the lighted window of the signal-box shining in the distance, a faint yellow disc. The next thing she knew was that she had reached the boundary of the line, but at a point still some distance from the box. It now became needful to exercise more caution than she had hitherto done, lest she should be seen by any of the gang, who were doubtless somewhere near at hand. The line at this point was bounded by a wooden fencing put up to prevent the straying of cattle, close to which, on the field-side, grew a thin straggling hedge. Under the shelter of this hedge Clara now stole softly and cautiously forward, with eyes and ears preternaturally on the alert. Step by step she drew nearer without being disturbed by a sight or a sound, till at length she faced the box with its lighted window where it stood on the opposite side of the line. Then with a heart, the pulsing of which sounded like a low drumming in her ears, she parted the bushes and peered through.
For a moment or two a mist dimmed her eyes, and all she could discern was that there was some one inside the box. Then the mist cleared away, and she saw that the man standing there with one hand resting on a lever was not her husband, but the man Slinkey, whose sinister face she had seen through the broken shutter. Gerald was nowhere to be seen. She had come too late!