“The man who gives you this is the detective I mentioned in my letter this morning. Trust him and attend to his instructions.—Frederick.”
“The man who gives you this is the detective I mentioned in my letter this morning. Trust him and attend to his instructions.—Frederick.”
Becky returned to the detective and said:
“I know you now. What do you want me to do?”
“Is there any chance of Richard Manx hearing us?” asked the detective.
Becky, placing her fingers to her lips went to the basement stairs and called:
“Fanny!”
The child appeared immediately, and Becky whispered in her ear for a few moments. Fanny nodded, and crept softly upstairs in the direction of the garret occupied by Richard Manx.
“We are safe,” said Becky to the detective. “Richard Manx cannot hear what we say. Fanny is keeping watch on him.”
“Fanny’s a clever little thing,” said thedetective admiringly; “I’d like a daughter with her wits. Now, Miss, keep in your mind what I am going to tell you—not that there’s any need for me to say that. You are working for Mr. Frederick, as I am, and others with me. A watch is going to be set outside this house—and if it’s done as well as the watch you’ve kept inside the house, we shan’t have any reason to grumble. In what room does the old bedridden lady, Mrs. Bailey sleep?”
“In the first floor back,” replied Becky.
“Is the first floor front open? Can you get into the room?”
“Yes, I have the key.”
“That’s the room, isn’t it?” said the detective, stepping back and looking up. “There’s a balcony before the window.”
“Yes.”
“Does the window open easily?”
“I don’t know; I have never tried.”
“Would you oblige me by stepping upstairs and trying now? And it will save trouble if you leave the window open. Be as quiet asyou can, so as not to alarm Richard Manx. I’ll keep outside the street door while you’re gone.”
Becky went softly into the kitchen for the key of the first floor front, and then went upstairs and opened the door. She might have been a shadow, she glided about so noiselessly. The window was not easy to open, but she succeeded in raising the sash almost without a sound.
“It is done,” she said, as she stood before the detective once more.
“I’d like to have another daughter,” said he, in a tone of approval, “with wits as sharp as yours. I believe Mr. Frederick was right when he told me there was not your equal. Now, something’s going to be done that will take about a quarter-of-an-hour to do, and we want to be sure during that quarter-of-an-hour that Richard Manx is not up to any of his little games. You understand me—we want to be sure that he is in his garret, smoking his pipe, or saying his prayers, or reading a good book. You and Fanny between youcan do that part of the business for us—I leave you to manage how. I wouldn’t presume to dictate toyou. If ever you’ve a mind to give lessons inmyway of business, you may count on me as a pupil.”
“We can do what you ask,” said Becky; “but how are we to let you know?”
“There’s the window of the first floor front open. If Richard Manx is safe in his room, let fly a bit of newspaper out of the window—I shall see it, and know what it means. If there’s danger—if at any time within a quarter-of-an-hour of the newspaper flying out of the window, Richard Manx is up to any of his games, such as going out of his room through the ceiling instead of through the door, or prowling about the roof when he ought to be in bed—throw one of these little balls of red worsted out of the window. That will be a danger signal, and we shall know what to do.”
“May I ask you one question?”
“A dozen if you like—but I won’t promise to answer them.”
“I think you may answer this one. Is the gentleman who employs you taking an active part in what is going to be done?”
“He is, Miss.”
“Then he is near here!” exclaimed Becky. She could not restrain herself from looking this way and that through the darkness, but she saw nothing but shadows. Not a human being except the man beside her was visible to her sight. “O, if I could see him only for a moment!” she murmured softly, but not so softly that the detective did not hear the words.
“Best not, Miss,” he said; “I’ve known the finest schemes upset just in the same way. There’s only one thing to be thought of—when that’s done, the time is all before you.”
“You are right, I feel,” said Becky, with a sigh. “I’ll go in now, and do what you want.”
The detective stepped on to the pavement, and when the street door was closed, stationed himself by the railings of the parody of a garden which occupied the centre of theSquare. He kept his eyes fixed on the first floor window until he saw fluttering from it a piece of newspaper. His professional instinct caused him to pick this piece of paper from the ground, so that it should not fall into the hands of an enemy; then he took from his pocket a pocket-handkerchief and waved it in the air. During his conversation with Becky, and up to this moment, his movements had not been disturbed, and no man or woman had appeared in the Square; but now, in answer to his signal, a man made his way towards him.
“All’s well,” said the detective; “get in as quickly as you can.”
The man did not reply; accompanied by the detective, he walked up to the house in which the murder had been committed, and inserted the key in the street door. The lock was rusty, and he could not turn the key.
“I thought of that,” said the detective; “take the key out, sir.”
Producing a small bottle of oil and a feather, he oiled the wards of the lock, withoutallowing his attention to be distracted from his observation of the first floor windows of Mrs. Preedy’s house; he then rubbed a little oil into the wards of the key, and putting it in, turned the lock. The door of No. 119 was open to receive the new tenant.
“A word, sir,” said the detective; “there’s no danger at present. Nothing can come within fifty yards of us without my being warned of it. Are you quite determined to pass these two nights in the house alone?”
“I am quite determined—this night and to-morrow night, and as many more as may be necessary.”
“I’ve got a man handy—a man you can trust, sir.”
“I require no one.”
“Very good, sir. Don’t forget the whistle if you require help. There’ll be no danger in the day; it’s the night you’ll have to be careful of. At one o’clock in the morning you’ll find the basket lowered into the area.”
“That is well; but you had best remain onthe spot for a few moments till I see if I can get into the area.”
He went into the deserted house, and shut himself in. Before he took a step inwards he sat on the floor, and pulled off his boots, and with these in his hands rose, and groped towards the basement stairs. Downstairs he crept in his stocking feet, and, after listening for a moment or two, obtained a light from a noiseless match, and lighted the lamp in a policeman’s lantern. By its aid he found his way through a small door, which he opened with difficulty, into the area. He looked up, and was instantly accosted by the detective.
“There is no difficulty in the way,” he said. “Good night.”
“Good night, sir.”
Thus it was that Frederick Holdfast, the new tenant, took possession of the house in which his father had been foully murdered.
Silently he re-entered the kitchen, closing behind him the door which led into the area. The place was damp and cold, but his agitation was so intense that he was oblivious ofpersonal discomfort. Even when the rats ran over his stocking feet he was not startled. He had brought a bundle in with him, which he placed upon the table and unpacked. It contained food and wine, but not sufficient for the time he intended to remain in the house. This was to be supplied to him in the basket which the detective promised to lower into the area in a couple of hours. In his breast pocket was a revolver, which he examined carefully. So cautious was he in his proceedings that, before he unpacked his food and examined his revolver, he blocked the stairs which led from the kitchen to the ground floor by chairs, the removing or scattering of which would have warned him that he was not the only person in the house.
Presently he nerved himself to undertake a task which sent thrills of horror through his veins, which brought tears of anguish to his eyes, and sighs of pity and grief to his lips. He opened the door of the servant’s bedroom, a cupboard as small as that which Becky occupied in the next house; he tracked withhis eyes the direction which a mortally-wounded man would take from the kitchen door to the door of this miserable bedroom. He followed the track, examining it with agonised care, and knelt down before the stains of blood which marked the spot upon which his murdered father had fallen in his death agony. Time had not worn away the stains, and Frederick’s suffering and sympathy made them clearer to his sight than they could possibly have been to the sight of any other living being. For a long time he remained kneeling by this fatal, palpable, indelible shadow—remained as if in prayer, and overpowering self-communing. And, indeed, during the time he so knelt, with this shadow of his father’s body in his eyes, and weighing as an actual weight upon his heart, causing him to breathe thickly and in short hurried gasps, dim pictures of his childhood passed before him, in every one of which his father appeared in an affectionate and loving guise. And all the while these sweeter presentments were visible to his inner sight,his father dead, with the blood oozing from his fatal wounds, lay before him with horrible distinctness. When he rose, and moved a few paces off, not only the shadow but the very outlines of a physical form seemed to be lying at his feet. The dying face was raised to his, the dim eyes looked into his, the limbs trembled, the overcharged breast heaved; and when, after closing his eyes and opening them again, he compelled himself, because of the actual duty before him, to believe that it was but the trick of a sympathetic imagination, he could not rid himself of the fancy that his father’s spirit was hovering over him, and would never leave him until his task was accomplished.
He tracked the fatal stains out of the kitchen, and up the stairs to the passage to the street door, and noted the stains upon the balustrade, to which his father had clung as he staggered to his death. As he stood in the passage he fancied he heard a stifled movement in one of the rooms above. Hastily he shut out the light of his lamp, and stood indeep darkness, listening for a repetition of the sound. It did not reach him, but as he leant forward, with his head inclined, and his hand upon his revolver, the church clock proclaimed the hour of midnight. Clear, strong and deep, and fraught with unspeakable solemnity, the bell tolled the hour which marks the tragedy and the sorrow of life. Shadows and pictures of sad experiences, and of pathetic and tragic events, which were not in any way connected with him, crowded upon his mind. It appeared as if the records of years were brought before him in every fresh tolling of the bell, and when the echo of the last peal died away, a weight which had grown well nigh intolerable was lifted from his soul. Then, his thoughts recurring to the sound which he had fancied he heard in the room above, he mentally asked himself whether the murderer had paused to listen to the tolling of the midnight hour, and whether any premonition of the fate in store for him had dawned upon his guilty mind?
For awhile nothing further disturbed him.Lying upon the stairs for fully five minutes, he convinced himself that as yet no other human being but himself was in the house. Turning the light of his lantern on again, he continued his examination of his father’s last movements up the stairs to the first floor. No need for him to doubt which was the room his father had occupied. The stains of blood led him to the very door, and here again he shut out the light of his lamp, and listened and looked before he ventured to place his hand upon the handle. Silence reigned; no glimmer of light was observable through the chinks and crevices of the door. Still in darkness, he turned the handle and entered the room. He had disturbed no one; he was alone.
Cautiously he let in the light, but not to its full capacity. An amazing sight greeted him.
None of the furniture in the house had been removed, and everything his father had used during his fatal tenancy was in the room. The piano, the table at which he sat and wrote, the chairs, the bed, were there—butnot in the condition in which they had been left. A demon of destruction appeared to have been at work. The bed was ripped open, the paper had been stripped from the walls, the coverings of the chairs were torn off, and the chairs themselves broken to pieces, the table was turned on end, the interior of the piano had been ransacked, the very keys were wrenched away—in the desperate attempt to discover some hidden thing, some hidden document upon which life and death might hang. More than this. The carpet had been taken up, and a few of the boards of the floor had been wrenched away, and the dust beneath searched amongst. But this was recent work; the greater part of the room was still boarded over.
Frederick Holdfast had no intention himself of immediately commencing a search; he knew that it would be dangerous. For a certainty Richard Manx intended to continue it without delay, and was only waiting for a favourable opportunity to leave his attic. This thought induced Frederick to consider inwhat way he could best watch the villain’s movements, without being himself detected. To do this in the room itself was impossible. There was no chance by the window; it could be done only from the ceiling or from the adjoining room. To effect an opening in the ceiling in so short a time as he had at his disposal was impracticable, and even could it be done, there were dangerous chances of detection. After a little reflection, he decided that it could be best done from the adjoining room, and the moment this was decided upon he saw that Richard Manx had to some extent assisted him. The laths which separated the rooms were fragile, the plaster was thinly spread; many of the laths in the dividing wall had been laid bare by the stripping of the paper. He stood up on the bed, and without an appreciable effort, thrust his finger between the laths, and through the wall paper of the adjoining apartment, choosing that part of the wall which would afford him a favourable point of espionage. Alighting from the bed, he carefully obliterated the marks of footstepson the clothes, and then left the room for the one adjoining. The door was unlocked, and the key was in the inside. More from the locality than from the aperture, so securely small had he made it, he saw at once that it was practicable, and he ascertained by moving the table close to the wall, that a safe footing was afforded for his watch. This contented him, and for a time he rested.
There were still no signs of Richard Manx. One o’clock had struck, and remembering that at that hour the basket of food was to be lowered into the area, he hastened downstairs, and arrived just in time to receive it.
“Everything is quiet here,” said the detective, in a hoarse whisper. “Is our friend at work?” meaning by “our friend,” Richard Manx.
“No,” replied Frederick.
“Ah, he will be presently,” said the detective; “he doesn’t commence till he thinks everybody’s asleep, and Mrs. Preedy has only been home for about ten minutes. She’s asfond of a gossip as a cat is of mice. She’s had an extra glass, I think. Are you quite comfortable, sir?”
“Quite,” said Frederick, and put an end to the conversation by wishing the detective good night.
“He’s a plucky one,” mused the detective, as he resumed his watch; “but he’s working for a prize worth winning.”
The food in the basket was sufficient for one man’s wants for nearly a week, and Frederick, partaking of a little, went softly upstairs to the drawing room. He took the precaution of locking the door, and, mounting the table, waited for events.
He had not long to wait. At half-past one Richard Manx entered the room in which Mr. Holdfast had been murdered.
Frederick did not instantly recognise him, his disguise was so perfect, but when he removed his wig, the watcher saw his enemy, Pelham, before him.
The wronged and persecuted man hadschooled himself well. Though his heart beat furiously and his blood grew hot, he suffered no sound to escape him. He had fully made up his mind, in the event of Richard Manx discovering a document, to steal upon him unaware, and wrest it from him. He did not doubt his power to do as much; in physical strength he was the match of three such men as Pelham. His chief anxiety, in the event of anything being discovered, was that it should not be destroyed.
Richard Manx used no precaution in the method of entering the room, except that he placed his candle upon the floor in such a way that its reflection could not reach the window, which opened at the back of the house. This lack of precaution was in itself a sufficient proof that his search had been long continued, and was a proof also that he considered himself safe in the deserted house.
He was evidently in a discontented mood; he looked around the room sullenly and savagely, but in this expression Frederick detected a certain helplessness and fear which denoted that he was ill at ease. That he was growingtired of his task was clear, for he resumed it with an impatience and a want of system which might have prevented its successful accomplishment, even if he were on the threshold of discovery. Frederick, from his point of observation, had an uninterrupted view of his proceedings. He had brought with him a quantity of tools, and by the aid of these he set to work removing the flooring boards, with but little noise, one after another, searching eagerly in the rubbish beneath. With no success, however. Every now and then, as though tired of this part of his search, he rose, and examined the furniture in the room, suspicious that some hiding place might have escaped him. He muttered as he worked, but for a time his mutterings did not reach Frederick’s ears. After more than an hour’s labour, he took from a cupboard a bottle of spirits and a glass, and helped himself liberally. Then, dirty and begrimed as he was, and with beads of perspiration on his face, he sat down and consulted a pocket book, in which headded up a number of figures. “Five hundred,” he said in a low tone, “seven-fifty, eight hundred, a thousand, twelve hundred, fourteen hundred and twenty.” He came to the end of his reckoning, and glared at the figures as at a mortal enemy. Then from the same pocket-book he took out a packet of bank notes, and counted them over till he reached the total, fourteen hundred and twenty. Frederick held the true key to these proceedings. The sum of fourteen hundred and twenty pounds represented the whole of Mr. Pelham’s wealth, the payment and reward of a life of villainy, and perhaps of blood.
“It must be somewhere,” muttered the man, replacing the book in his pocket; “he wrote every day he was here. It was proved at the inquest. What has he done with his infernal scribble? If it is found by a stranger, and we are in the country, it will be death to us. Devil! devil! devil!” and he struck at the table in his passion, and then, alarmed at the sound, glared round with a terror-stricken face, with the air of a criminal overtaken by justice.
His fears allayed, he worked on again at the boards of the floor, making but slow progress. Three o’clock struck, and still he continued his work, and still was watched by the son of the murdered man. Half-past three—four—half-past four; and Richard Manx rose from his knees, and gave up his task for the night. Many times during his search had he drank from the bottle of spirits, but what he drank appeared to affect him only through his tongue, which became more loquacious and less guarded. Once more he counted his bank-notes, grudgingly, greedily, and muttered:
“She shall give me five hundred to-day—this very morning; that will make nineteen hundred and twenty—say eighteen hundred clear, to break the bank at Monaco. If she likes to come with me, she can. I am sick of this game; there’s too much to lose. To-morrow night shall be my last night here. I have searched every inch of this cursed room, and I throw it up. It is a slave’s work, not a gentleman’s.” He certainly looked as little like a gentleman as anyhuman being could, and his words proclaimed the utter villainy of his nature. “There’s too much danger in it,” he continued. “If the police were to take it in their heads to make another examination of this house, or if that weak idiot, Frederick Holdfast, were to turn up, I should find myself in the hole. Andsheshould, too; I’d make her suffer with me. A nice reward for all my scheming in America! Well, it kept them apart—I can count that to my credit. But for me, the old dotard and Frederick must have met. I owed him one for the part he played in the Sydney Campbell affair in Oxford—I owed him one, and I have paid it. And if I had him here, I’d serve him as I served—” He did not conclude his sentence; a sudden terror seized him, and he shook like a man in an ague. “I could have sworn I heard a voice,” he muttered. “Hush!” For a few moments he did not move; his feet were transfixed to the ground. By a strong effort he recovered himself, and a ghastly smile disfigured his face. “To-morrow night shall bethe last,” he said! “I swear it! I’ll commence to enjoy my life again. This is not the only country in the world.” And, shading the light of his candle with his hand, he left the room.
Frederick Holdfast did not move from his post till he had given Richard Manx ample time to reach his garret in the next house. Then he descended with difficulty, for his limbs were cramped. As he stepped from the table to the ground his foot slipped, and the table overbalanced, fell with a crash on its side. He congratulated himself upon his forethought in waiting till Richard Manx was out of hearing, but not knowing what might be the consequences of the noise—for it might have disturbed the inmates of either, or of both, the adjoining houses—he unlocked the door, and made his way as quickly as he could, consistent with necessary caution, to the basement, where in the course of another hour he sought a little rest, with his revolver firmly clenched in his hand.
MRS. HOLDFAST INSISTS UPON BECOMING AN ACTIVE PARTNER.
Thefollowing night—the night which Mr. Pelham had sworn should be the last of his search, and the last upon which he would continue his disguise as Richard Manx—this accomplished villain carried out his intention of coming home to his garret in Mrs. Preedy’s house much earlier than usual. In fact, it was not more than half-past eight as he turned one of the streets which branched into Great Porter Square. He was in good spirits, despite that the night was as wretched and gloomy as the most despondent mortal could maliciously—out of hatred for his species—have desired. All day long the rain had continued without intermission; thethoroughfares were in a deplorable condition of mud and slush, and those persons whose avocations did not compel them to be out in the streets, gladly availed themselves of the comforts of a fireside at home. These are not the occasions, especially in a city so crowded and selfish as London, when people are in the mood to be amiable and obliging, and it was therefore the more remarkable that Richard Manx, by no means a gracious being as a rule, should have walked to his lodgings in a glad and pleasant frame of mind. The fact was, good fortune had smiled upon him. He had had a long interview with Mrs. Holdfast, who on this very day had come into possession of a large sum of money, realised from certain of her late husband’s securities—shares in railway companies which had been delivered to her, as his sole heir and executrix. It was, indeed, no less a sum than twelve thousand pounds, and of this she had, in compliance with Mr. Pelham’s urgent demands, given him a cheque for fifteen hundred pounds, the exact sum, as hedeclared, necessary to clear himself from pressing debts and liabilities. This cheque he had forthwith converted into Bank of England notes, and they were safe in his pocket, with his other savings, with which he intended to make a large fortune at Monaco. Mrs. Holdfast had also consented to sell off her London house, and accompany him on a tour of pleasure. She, as well as he, was tired of the humdrum days; she sighed for excitement and adventure; the pleasure grounds of Europe were open to her, and now that she was a widow, and still young and beautiful, and now that the terrible anxieties of the past twelve months were at an end, she determined to enjoy her life as such a pretty woman should. There was another reason why she wished to get away from London, and indeed from England altogether, for a while. Since little Fanny had accosted her by the name of Grace, she did not feel herself safe. There was danger in the mere utterance of the name, and there was security in absence from spots in whichother persons, more cunning than a simple child like Fanny, might by some chance recognise her. She thought it would be as well to take the child with her; Fanny was a bright, clever little creature, and might prove useful, and if she got tired of her, it would be easy to lose her on the Continent, or place her in a situation where her babbling, if she were inclined to babble, could do no harm.
Mr. Pelham had visited her at noon in a spirit the reverse of that in which he left her. She had been most amiable and vivacious, and fell in joyfully with his plans, when he had expected her to be obstinate and ill-tempered, and inclined to thwart him. Then, he had intended to ask her for a cheque for five hundred pounds, and improving the opportunity, had obtained fifteen hundred. No wonder that he sang a little song to himself as he turned into Great Porter Square. Had a beggar solicited charity from him he might have obtained a small piece of silver, but it is the misfortune of human affairs that fitting opposites are rarely brought into fortunateconjunction, and the beggar not being forthcoming, Richard Manx’s charitable spell had no opportunity of airing itself. He was within a few doors of his lodging-house when a woman, who had walked quickly after him, and was out of breath with the exertion, laid her hand on his arm, and wished him good evening.
MRS. HOLDFAST INSISTS UPON BECOMING AN ACTIVE PARTNER—(CONTINUED).
Richard Manx, as a man of gallantry, was generally ready for any adventure with the fair sex which offered itself, but on the present occasion, despite his disposition to be amiable, he shrank within himself at being thus suddenly accosted. The intrusion of an unexpected voice—which at the moment he did not recognise—upon his thoughts awoke him to a sense of danger. He therefore walked on without replying, shaking the woman’s hand from his arm; but was almost immediately brought to a standstill by the sound of the woman’s steps hurrying after him.
She wore a cloak, with a hood to it, whichwas thrown over her head; in her haste the hood fell back, and her fair face, no longer hidden, shone out from masses of light hair, in the disorder of which was a certain picturesqueness which heightened the effect of her beauty. As her hood fell back, Richard Manx turned and recognised her.
It was Mrs. Holdfast, the widow of the murdered man.
He uttered an exclamation of alarm, and with a frightened look around, pulled the hood over her head to hide her face.
“You mad woman!” he exclaimed; “do you want to ruin us? What brings you here?” Then a sudden thought drove all the blood from his face. “Has anything happened?” he asked, in a whisper.
She laughed at his agitation. “Nothing has happened,” she replied, “except that I am worn out with sameness.”
“Then what in the devil’s name brings you here?” he asked again.
“For shame, Pelham,” she said, lightly, “to be so rude to a lady! What brings mehere? I have told you. I am worn out with sameness. Sitting down with nothing to do, without excitement, in a house as dull and quiet as a doll’s cradle, doesn’t suit me. I was not cut out for that sort of life!”
“You could have waited a little,” he grumbled, somewhat reconciled to find that they were not being observed; “you were sure of another sort of life presently.”
“I’ll have it, thought I to myself, without waiting,” she said, recklessly, “and I feel better already. Running away from my doll’s cradle without preparation, with an idea in my head I am going to carry out, has put new life into me. My blood isn’t creeping through my veins; it is dancing, and I am alive once more. Really now I feel as if I should like to waltz with you round the Square!”
“Are you quite mad?” he cried, holding her still by force, but unable to refrain from admiration of her wild flow of spirits. “We have but a few hours to wait. Can’t you content yourself for a little while? What isthis insane idea of yours which you are going to carry out!”
“To spend the evening with you, my dear,” she replied gaily.
“Where?”
“In Great Porter Square. Where else?”
While this conversation was proceeding, he had led her in an opposite direction from the house in which he lodged, and they were now on the other side of the Square.
“Now I am sure you are mad,” he said. “Do you know what I have to do to-night?”
“No,” she replied, “and I am curious to know.”
“I keep it to myself; but you will hear of it, and when you do you will laugh. Shall I leave behind me a danger hanging over my head—and yours? A secret that one day may be discovered, and bring ruin and death to me—and you? No, no; they make a mistake in the mettle of Dick Pelham if they think he is going to leave a trap-door open for himself to fall into.”
“I should fall also, Pelham!” she said half-questioningly.
“Why, yes; you would come down with me. It couldn’t be helped, I fear. I have a kind of dog-in-the-manger feeling for you. If I can’t have you myself, I’ll not leave you to another man.”
“Itcan’tbe helped, I suppose,” she said, shrugging her shoulders; “but it doesn’t matter to me so long as I am enjoying myself.”
“Very well, then,” said he, in a decided tone; “go home now, and get your trinkets and dresses in order, for by to-day week we’ll be out of this dull hole. We’ll live where the sun shines for the future. Hurry now, and off with you. I have a serious night’s work before me.”
“I will help you in it,” she said, in a tone as decided as his own. “It isn’t a bit of use bullying, Pelham. I’ve made up my mind. I haven’t seen your room in No. 118, and I intend to see it. I have a right to, haven’t I? The wonder is I have kept away so long;and this is the last night I shall have the chance. I was curious before, but I’m a thousand times more curious now, and if you were to talk all night you wouldn’t put me off. You are going to do something bold—all the better; I’ll be there to see, and I dare say I can be of assistance to you. We are in partnership, and I insist upon being an active partner. How do I know but that you have been deceiving me all this while?”
“In what way?” he demanded fiercely.
“I will make sure,” she said, “that you haven’t a pretty girl hidden in that garret of yours, and that you don’t want to run away with her instead of me?”
“Jealous!” he cried, with a gratified laugh; “after telling me a dozen times lately that you hated the sight of me!”
“That’s a woman’s privilege. If you don’t understand us by this time, it is too late for you to begin to learn. Pelham, I am coming up with you.”
“You are determined?”
“As ever a woman was in this world. Ifyou run from me now, and enter the house without me, I’ll follow you, and knock at the door, and inquire for Mr. Richard Manx; and if they ask me who I am, I’ll say I amMrs.Richard Manx.”
“I believe you would,” he said, looking down into her face, and not knowing whether to feel angry or pleased.
“I would, as truly as I am a woman.”
“There’s no help for it, then,” he said; “but I don’t know how to get you into the house without being observed.”
“Nothing easier. All the time we’ve been talking I haven’t seen half-a-dozen people. Choose a moment when nobody’s about; open the door quickly, and I’ll slip in like an eel. Before you shut the door, I’ll be at the top of the house.”
“Let me warn you once more; there is danger.”
“All the better; there’s excitement in danger.”
“And if I don’t find what I’ve been hunting for these weeks past, I intend to carry outa desperate design, which if successful—and it must be; I’ll make it so—will place us in a position of perfect safety.”
“Bravo, Pelham; I never thought you had so much pluck. I will help you in everything you have to do. Now let us get into the house. I am drenched through. You can make a fire, I suppose.”
He cautioned and instructed her how to proceed, and they walked to No. 118, he leading, and she but a step or two behind. Seeing no person near, he opened the door with one turn of the key, and she glided rapidly past him, and was on the stairs, and really nearly at the top of the house, feeling her way along the balustrades, before he was up the first flight. Safely within the miserable room he had hired, he turned the key, and lighted a candle; then, pointing to wood and coals, he motioned her to make a fire. The stove was so small she could not help laughing at it, but he whispered to her savagely to stop her merriment, and not to utter a sound that could be heard outside theroom. The fire lighted, she sat before it, and dried her clothes as well as she could, while he busied himself about the room. Then he sat down by her side, and explained his plans. As long as suspicion could be averted from them, and as long as they were sure that no document written by Mr. Holdfast between the date of his taking lodgings in No. 119 Great Porter Square, and the date of his death, could be produced against them—so long were they safe. Suspicion was averted from them, as they believed, and they had every reason to believe that the murder would take its place, nay, had already taken its place, upon the list of monstrous crimes, the mystery of which would never be brought to light. Their only danger, then, lay in the probable discovery of the supposed document for which Pelham, as Richard Manx, had so long been searching. From what had been made known by the press and the police of Mr. Holdfast’s movements after his taking up his residence in No. 119, and from what they themselves knew, itwas almost impossible that such a document, if it had existence, could have been taken out of the house. Pelham had sought for it unsuccessfully. What then, remained to be done for safety? To set fire to the house in which it was hidden, to burn it to the ground, and thus blot out from existence all knowledge of their crime.
This was Pelham’s desperate plan, and this deed it was he intended to perpetrate to-night. For a few hours longer he would search the room in which Mr. Holdfast was murdered, and then, everything being prepared to prevent failure, he would fire the house, and in the confusion make his escape, and disappear for ever from the neighbourhood. Mrs. Holdfast’s unexpected appearance on the scene complicated matters—the chief difficulty being how to get her away, during the confusion produced by the fire, without being observed. But when, unwillingly, he had given an enforced consent to her wild whim of keeping in his company on this eventful night, he had thought of a way to overcomethe difficulty. In her woman’s dress, and with her attractive face, he could scarcely hope that she would escape observation; but he had in his room a spare suit of his own clothes, in which she could disguise herself, and with her face and hands blackened, and her hair securely fastened and hidden beneath a soft felt wideawake hat which hung in his garret, he had no fear that she would be discovered.
She entered into his plans with eagerness, and the adventure in which she was engaged imparted a heightened colour to her face and a deeper brilliancy to her eyes. As she leant towards the fire, with the reflection of its ruddy glow in her features, an uninformed man, gazing at her only for a moment, would have carried away with him a picture of beauty and innocence so enduring that his thoughts would often have wandered to it.
“Here are your clothes,” said Pelham; “when we are ready I will mount to the roof, and wait till you are dressed. Then I will come and assist you up. I have two orthree journeys to make to the next house before we re-commence the search. See what I have here.”
He unlocked the box in the corner which Becky had vainly tried to open, and took from it a tin can filled with pitch, two small cans of inflammable oil, and a packet of gunpowder.
“These will make the old place blaze,” he said, laughing. “It will be a good job done if all Great Porter Square is burnt down. The landlady of this house ought to pay me a per-centage upon her insurance. The fire will be the making of her.”
“When do we begin?” asked Grace.
“Sooner than usual,” he replied. “At about half-past ten. The night is so bad that the Square will be pretty well deserted; and there is no one in this house to disturb us.”
He did not neglect the precaution of going to the door occasionally and listening, but he saw and heard nothing to alarm him. Exactly at half-past ten he bade Grace dress as quickly as possible in the suit of his clothes, and to disguise herself to the best ofher ability. Her own woman’s dress she was to tie up in a bundle and bring with her into the next house. He mounted to the roof, and she handed him the cans and the packet which were to ensure the destruction of No. 119. Then she proceeded to disguise herself.
It was a task exactly to her taste. She took the greatest pleasure in making herself look as much as possible like a young man, and as she gazed at herself in the broken bit of looking-glass fastened to the wall, she said aloud,
“Upon my word, Gracie, you make a very pretty boy!”
She wore a great many trinkets, which she wrapped in paper, and put into her pockets, but the novelty of her disguise, and the inconvenient space in which she effected it, caused her to drop two of these, a ring and an earring, and although she searched the floor carefully, she could not find them. Her hair she twisted into a tight knot at the top of her head, and the wideawake completely covered it. Richard Manx made his appearance at thetrap-door above, and asked if she was ready. She answered that she was, and he assisted her up, lifting her, indeed, almost bodily from the chairs upon which she stood.
“What a little lump of weakness you are!” he exclaimed. “You can’t weigh above a hundred pounds.”
Carefully he led her over the roof, and down the trap-door, into the next house. Standing in the dark with him in the garret of this tenement, he felt that she trembled.
“If you are going to show the white feather,” he whispered, “you had better turn back. There is time even now.”
Little did she imagine how much hung upon the opportunity offered her. She refused it, saying that she had experienced a slight chill, and that she would go on; so he led her, white-faced now and shaking in every limb, down the stairs to the room in which her husband had been murdered.
Its appearance, while it bewildered, afforded her relief. Had it been in order, as she had seen it when her husband had occupied it,she could not have controlled her agitation; but it was so torn up, the work of destruction had been so wanton, that she could scarcely recognise it as the same room.
“Have you any brandy, Pelham?” she asked, careful, as he had directed her, not to raise her voice.
He had a bottle with him, and he gave her some in a glass, upon which her courage returned, and she shook her head defiantly, as much as to say, “Who cares?”
“I haven’t been idle, you see,” said Pelham, pointing around. “Amuse yourself while I do what is necessary.”
What was “necessary” was the villainous work of scattering the gunpowder about, disposing of the pitch, and pouring the oil upon the walls and flooring of the passage. At the conclusion of this part of his scheme there was still a great deal of inflammable material left, and these he placed aside, the pitch and the oil in the tins, and the gunpowder, loose, in its paper packet, in the room in which he was at work.
“Are you sure there is no one but ourselves in the house?” asked Grace.
“Listen for yourself,” replied Pelham. “If you like you can go downstairs and look. I’ll ensure you against anything but ghosts and fire.”
She shuddered, and, to divert her thoughts, endeavoured to take a practical interest in the search for the hidden document. It was difficult, in the state of the room, to move about, and she soon grew wearied. She threw herself upon the bed, and longed impatiently for the time when the crowning touch would be given to the wicked work in which she had insisted upon becoming an active partner.