Daylight brought no relief to the confusion of his mind; and by mid-morning, as he sat waiting for something to happen, hovering between hope and dread, his head seemed nigh to bursting.
But suddenly all things were changed. The door of his cell was opened and a warder entered. Jim did not look up: his face was buried in his hands in a vain effort to collect his thoughts.
“There’s your wife to see you, sir,” said the warder, tapping his shoulder. “You are to come with me.”
Jim sprang to his feet, his eyes blinking, his hair tossed about his forehead. Down the corridor he was led, and up a flight of stairs. The door of the visitor’s room was opened, and a moment later the beloved arms were about his neck, and the warder had stepped back into the passage.
“It’s all right, my darling!” she cried. “We’ve found the murderer. The order for your release will come through at once: you’ll be out of this in an hour or so. Oh, Jim, Jim, Jim, my darling, my darling!”
He was incredulous, and in breathless haste she told him what had happened. She had come back to England by the quick route, and, travelling across country, had arrived some days before his ship had completed the long sea route by way of the Peninsula.
“Mrs. Darling came with me,” she said. “Oh, Jim, she’s been splendid.”
“What d’you mean?” he asked in astonishment. “She is my accuser.”
“Oh, that was only natural,” Monimé explained. “That was a mother’s instinctive feeling. But we talked all through that terrible night at Luxor, and long before we left Egypt I think she realized she had made a mistake. You see, as soon as the police were able to prove that Merrivall’s housekeeperwas not guilty she at once thought it must have been you after all, and she swore she’d hunt you down. She came to Egypt with the concurrence of the police, who had an unconfirmed report about your having been seen at Abu Simbel.”
“Never mind about all that,” Jim interrupted. “Tell me who did it.... Oh, for God’s sake tell me they’ve really got the man!”
Monimé reassured him. “Listen,” she went on. “As soon as we arrived in England I made Mrs. Darling take me down to Eversfield, and we started our own inquiries. You had spoken of having sent your poacher friend off to get Mrs. Darling’s address from the postman; so of course we went first to the post-office, and Mr. Barnes was quite emphatic that Smiley-face was only with him for a few minutes early in the afternoon.”
Jim’s face fell. “I feared as much,” he groaned. “You’re on the wrong scent. You’re suggesting that Smiley did it.”
“I’m not suggesting,” she answered with triumph. “Hediddo it. He has confessed.”
He stared at her in dismay. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed, and, turning away, stood lost in thought. He had not believed it possible that the poacher was in any way connected with the crime, for his errand in the village had seemed to account for his time, and later in the afternoon he had returned with perfect composure.
“Has the poor chap been arrested?” he asked at length.
Monimé shook her head. “No,” she said, “he is in the infirmary at Oxford. They hardly expected him to live yesterday, after all the strain of makinghis confession to us and then to the police.” It was his heart, it seemed, that had given out, a fact at which Jim was not surprised, for when he had met him on that memorable day it was evident that he was very ill.
“Poor old Smiley!” he murmured. “He did it for my sake.”
Monimé’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Jim,” she said. “I’m so cross with you. To think that you never let me know you were a great poet. You said you only scribbled doggerel. When I read this book of your poems I cried my eyes out, with pride and temper and love and fear. Didn’t you realize you were writing things that would live?”
“Good Lord, no!” he answered. “I thought you’d think them awful rot.”
The order from the Home Secretary for Jim’s release was not long delayed, and soon after midday he was a free man once more, enjoying a bath and a change of clothes at the hotel where his wife was staying. Here, when his toilet was complete, Mrs. Darling came to see him, and he was surprised to observe the affectionate relationship which seemed to exist between her and Monimé.
“Jim, my dear,” she said, when the somewhat difficult greetings were exchanged. “I am a wicked old woman to have brought such unhappiness upon you; but you will know what I felt about my Dolly’s cruel end.” She passed her plump hand over her eyes. “I can’t yet bear to think of it.”
“Yes, I know,” he answered. “But you might have realized that I would not have done such a thing.”
“I see that now,” she said. “This dear girl hasexplained you to me, so that I see you as clear as crystal. She has pointed out that you will neither let anybody interfere with your life nor will you interfere with theirs. You just live and let live. I hadn’t quite understood that, but I see it now, and your poems, too, have helped me to understand. Isn’t it true that if you once remove understanding from life you get every kind of complication! It is our business as women to make a study of the workings of men’s minds; but in this case I made a miserable hash of it.... Oh dear, oh dear!” she muttered, and suddenly, sitting down heavily upon a chair, she wept loudly, rocking her fat little body to and fro.
Jim was not able to remain long to comfort her. He had determined to catch an afternoon express to Oxford to try to see the dying Smiley-face before the end; and he had arranged to return by the late evening train, so that he and Monimé might go down next morning to join their little son on the south coast.
He evaded a mob of journalists at the door of the hotel, and reached Oxford after the winter sun had set, driving to the infirmary in a scurry of snow. In an ante-room he explained his mission to the matron, who seemed much relieved that he had come.
“He’s been asking about you all day, and begging us to tell him if you had been released,” she said. “It’s almost as though he were clinging on to life until he knew you were safe. He’s a poor, half-witted creature. It’s a mercy he is dying.”
Jim was taken into a small room leading from one of the large wards; and here, in the dim lightof a green-shaded electric globe, he saw a nurse leaning over the sick man’s bed. He saw the poacher’s red hair, now less towsled than he had known it in the open, and of a more pronounced colour by reason of its washing and combing; he saw the drawn features, and the shut eyes; he saw the rough, hairy hands lying inert upon the white quilt: and for a moment he thought he had arrived too late.
The matron, however, exchanged a whispered word with the nurse; and presently a sign was made to him to approach. He thereupon seated himself at the bedside, and laid his hand upon Smiley’s arm.
For some moments there was silence in the room; but at length the little pig-like eyes opened, and Jim could see the sudden expression of relief and happiness which at once lit up the whole face.
“Forgive me, forgive me,” the dying man whispered. “I didn’t know they’d taken you. If I’d ha’ known that, I’d ha’ told them at once. I thought you was safe in them furrin lands; and when your lady come yesterday and said they’d cotched you and put you in the lock-up, I thought I’d go clean off it, I did.”
Jim pressed his hand. “Smiley,” he said, “why did you do it?”
“Seemed like it was the only way,” he replied. “When I come back into the woods to wait for you, I heerd you and her talking, and I listened; and then I heerd her say as ’ow she’d make your name stink in the nostrils of every gen’l’man, and I knew you couldn’t never be rid o’ she. Then her come running past where I was a-hiding, and her tripped up and fell. Fair stunned, her was. I thought herwas dead, her lay that still. So I reckoned I’d make sure. I did it quick, with a stone. Her made no sound.”
“But why did you do it?” Jim repeated.
Smiley-face grinned. “Because you was my friend, and her was your enemy. Because I remembered your face that day when you was a-weeping down there in the woods, and a-longing to be free again.”
He closed his eyes and for some moments he did not speak. At length, however, he looked at Jim once more, and his lips moved. “Parson do say God be werry merciful,” he whispered. “Maybe He’ll understand why I done it. But I don’t care if He send I into hell fire, now I know you’re happy. Tell me, sir, what be you going to do?”
“I’m going away, Smiley,” replied Jim. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. We are going to find a little house overlooking the Mediterranean, and in the years to come, when all this is forgotten, we shall come back here, perhaps, and get the place ready for my son. You’d like my son, Smiley: he’s a fine little lad.”
The poacher nodded. “When you come back here,” he said, “go down into the woods and whistle to me the same as you used to do. I shall hear. I shall say: ‘There’s my dear a-calling of me. Friends sticks to friends through thick and thin.’ And maybe they’ll let me answer you....”
His voice trailed off, but his lips smiled. “Oh, them little rabbits,” he chuckled.
THE END