Mr Baker had some uncomfortable experiences. When he was brought before the magistrates it was first of all pointed out--as it were, inferentially--that he was not only a dangerous character, but, also, just the sort of person who might be expected to commit a heinous crime, as his monstrous behaviour when resisting arrest clearly showed. Not content with inflicting severe injuries on the police, he had treated other persons, who had assisted them in their laudable attempts to take him into safe custody, even worse. In proof of this it was shown that one such person was in the cottage hospital, and two more under the doctor's hands; while Granger, the local constable, and Nunn, the detective in charge of the case, appeared in the witness-box, one with his arm in a sling, and the other with plastered face and bandaged head. The fact that the prisoner himself bore unmistakable traces of having lately been engaged in some lively proceedings did not enhance his naturally uncouth appearance. It was felt by more than one who saw him that he looked like the sort of person who was born to be hung.
His own statement in the coroner's court having been produced in evidence against him, it was supplemented by the statements of independent witnesses in a fashion which began to make the case against him look very ugly indeed. Both Miss Arnott and Mr Morice were called to prove that his own assertion--that he had threatened to shoot the master of Oak Dene--was only too true. While they were in the box the prisoner, who was unrepresented by counsel, preserved what, for him, was an unusual silence. He stared at them, indeed, and particularly at the lady, in a way which was almost more eloquent than speech. Then other witnesses were produced who shed a certain amount of light on his proceedings on that memorable Saturday night.
It was shown, for instance, that he was well within the mark in saying that he had had a glass or two. Jenkins, the landlord of the "Rose and Crown," declared that he had had so many glasses that he had to eject him from his premises; he was "fighting drunk." In that condition he had staggered home, provided himself with a gun and gone out with it. A driver of a mail-cart, returning from conveying the mails to be taken by the night express to town, had seen him on a stile leading into Exham Park; had hailed him, but received no answer. A lad, the son of the woman with whom Baker lodged, swore that he had come in between two and three in the morning, seeming "very queer." He kept muttering to himself while endeavouring to remove his boots--muttering out loud. The lad heard him say, "I shot him--well, I shot him. What if I did shoot him? what if I did?" He kept saying this to himself over and over again. After he had gone to bed, the lad, struck by the singularity of his persistent repetition, looked at his gun. It had been discharged. The lad swore that, to his own knowledge, the gun had been loaded when Baker had taken it out with him earlier in the night.
The prisoner did not improve matters by his continual interruptions. He volunteered corroborations of the witnesses' most damaging statements; demanding in truculent tones to be told what was the meaning of all the fuss.
"I shot the man--well, I've said I shot him. But that didn't do him no harm to speak of. I swear to God I didn't do anything else to him. I hadn't no more to do with killing him than an unborn babe."
There were those who heard, however, who were inclined to think that he had had a good deal more to do with killing him than he was inclined to admit.
Miss Arnott, also, was having some experiences of a distinctly unpleasant kind. It was, to begin with, a shock to hear that Jim Baker had been arrested on the capital charge. When she was told what he had said, and read it for herself in the newspapers, she began to understand what had been the meaning of the gunshot and of the groans which had ensued. She, for one, had reason to believe that what the tippling old scoundrel had said was literally true, that he had spoken all the truth. Her blood boiled when she read his appeal to Hugh Morice, and that gentleman's carefully formulated corroboration. The idea that serious consequences might ensue to Baker because of his candour was a frightful one.
It was not pleasant to be called as a witness against him; she felt very keenly the dumb eloquence of the appeal in the blood-shot eyes which were fixed upon her the whole time she was testifying, she observed with something more than amazement. She had a horrible feeling that he was deliberately endeavouring to fit a halter round the neck of the drink-sodden wretch who, he had the best reason for knowing, was innocent of the crime of which he was charged.
A brief encounter which took place between them, as they were leaving the court, filled her with a tumult of emotions which it was altogether beyond her power to analyse. He came out of the door as she was getting into her car. Immediately advancing to her side he addressed her without any sort of preamble.
"I congratulate you upon the clearness with which you gave your evidence, and on the touch of feminine sympathy which it betrayed for the prisoner. I fear, however, that that touch of sympathy may do him more harm than you probably intended."
There was something in the words themselves, and still more in the tone in which they were uttered, which sent the blood surging up into her face. She stared at him in genuine amazement.
"You speak to me like that?--you? Certainly you betrayed no touch of sympathy. I can exonerate you from the charge of injuring him by exhibiting anything of that kind."
"I was in rather a difficult position. Don't you think I was? Unluckily I was not at my ease, which apparently you were."
"I never saw anyone more at his ease than you seemed to be. I wondered how it was possible."
"Did you? Really? What a curious character yours is. And am I to take it that you were uneasy?"
"Uneasy? I--I loathed myself."
"Not actually? I can only assure you that you concealed the fact with admirable skill."
"And--I loathed you."
"Under the circumstances, that I don't wonder at at all. You would. I even go further. Please listen to me carefully, Miss Arnott, and read, as you very well can, the meaning which is between the lines. If a certain matter goes as, judging from present appearances, it very easily may go, I may have to take certain action which may cause you to regard me with even greater loathing than you are doing now. Do not mistake me on that point, I beg of you."
"If I understand you correctly, and I suppose I do, you are quite right in supposing that I shall regard you with feelings to which no mere words are capable of doing justice. I had not thought you were that kind of man."
Events marched quickly. Jim Baker was brought up before the magistrates three times, and then, to Miss Arnott's horror, he was committed for trial on the capital charge. She could hardly have appeared more affected if she herself had been committed. When the news was brought to her by Day, the butler, who still remained in her service, she received it with a point-blank contradiction.
"It's not true. It can't be true. They can't have done anything so ridiculous."
The old man looked at his young mistress with curious eyes, he himself seemed to be considerably disturbed.
"It's quite true, miss. They've sent him to take his trial at the assizes."
"I never heard of anything so monstrous. But, Day, it isn't possible that they can find him guilty?"
"As for that, I can't tell. They wouldn't, if I was on the jury, I do know that."
"Of course not, and they wouldn't if I was."
"No, miss, I suppose not."
Day moved off, Miss Arnott following him with her eyes, as if something in his last remark had struck her strangely.
A little later, when talking over the subject with Mrs Plummer, the elder lady displayed a spirit which seemed to be beyond the younger one's comprehension. Miss Arnott was pouring forth scorn upon the magistrates.
"I have heard a great deal of the stupidity of the Great Unpaid, but I had never conceived that it could go so far as this. There is not one jot or tittle of evidence to justify them in charging that man with murder."
Mrs Plummer's manner as she replied was grim.
"I wonder to hear you talk like that."
"Why should you wonder?"
"I do wonder." Mrs Plummer looked her charge straight in the face oddly. Miss Arnott had been for some time conscious of a continual oddity in the glances with which the other favoured her. Without being aware of it she was beginning to entertain a very real dislike for Mrs Plummer; she herself could scarcely have said why. "For my part I have no hesitation in saying that I think it a very good thing they have sent the man for trial; it would have been nothing short of a public scandal if they hadn't. On his own confession the man's an utterly worthless vagabond, and I hope they'll hang him.
"Mrs Plummer!"
"I do; and you ought to hope so."
"Why ought I to hope so?"
"Because then there'll be an end of the whole affair."
"But if the man is innocent?"
"Innocent!" The lady emitted a sound which might have been meant to typify scorn. "A nice innocent he is. Why you are standing up for the creature I can't see; you might have special reason. I say let them hang him, and the sooner the better, because then there'll be an end of the whole disgusting business, and we shall have a little peace and quietude."
"I for one should have no peace if I thought that an innocent man had been hanged, merely for the sake of providing me with it. But it is evidently no use our discussing the matter. I can only say that I don't understand your point of view, and I may add that there has been a good deal about you lately which I have not understood."
Mrs Plummer's words occasioned her more concern than she would have cared to admit; especially as she had a sort of vague feeling that they were representative of the state of public opinion, as it existed around her. Rightly or wrongly she was conscious of a very distinct suspicion that most of the people with whom she came into daily and hourly contact would have been quite willing to let Jim Baker hang, not only on general principles, but also with a confused notion--as Mrs Plummer had plainly put it--of putting an end to a very disagreeable condition of affairs.
In her trouble, not knowing where else to turn for advice or help, she sent for Mr Stacey. After dinner she invited him to a tête-à-tête interview in her own sitting-room, and then and there plunged into the matter which so occupied her thoughts.
"Do you know why I have sent for you, Mr Stacey?"
"I was hoping, my dear young lady, that it was partly for the purpose of affording me the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you again."
She had always found his urbanity a little trying, it seemed particularly out of place just now. Possibly she did not give sufficient consideration to the fact that the old gentleman had been brought out of town at no small personal inconvenience, and that he had just enjoyed a very good dinner.
"Of course there was that; but I am afraid that the principal reason why I sent for you is because of this trouble about Jim Baker."
"Jim Baker?"
"The man who is charged with committing the murder in Cooper's Spinney."
"I see, or, rather, I do not see what connection you imagine can exist between Mr Baker and myself."
"He is innocent--as innocent as I am."
"You know that of your own knowledge?"
"I am sure of it."
"What he has to do is to inspire the judge and jury with a similar conviction."
"But he is helpless. He is an ignorant man and has no one to defend him. That's what I want you to do--I want you to defend him."
"Me! Miss Arnott!" Mr Stacey put up his glasses the better to enable him to survey this astonishing young woman. He smiled benignly. "I may as well confess, since we are on the subject of confessions"--they were not, but that was by the way--"that there are one or two remarks which I should like to make to you, since you have been so kind as to ask me to pay you this flying visit; but, before coming to them, let us first finish with Mr Baker. Had you done me the honour to hint at the subject on which you wished to consult me, I should at once have informed you that I am no better qualified to deal with it than you are. We--that is the firm with which I am associated--do no criminal business; we never have done, and, I think I am safe in assuring you, we never shall do. May I ask if you propose to defray any expenses which may be incurred on Mr Baker's behalf? or is he prepared to be his own chancellor of the exchequer?"
"He has no money; he is a gamekeeper on a pound a week. I am willing to pay anything, I don't care what."
"Then, in that case, the matter is simplicity itself. Before I go I will give you the name of a gentleman whose reputation in the conduct of criminal cases is second to none; but I warn you that you may find him an expensive luxury."
"I don't care how much it costs."
Mr Stacey paused before he spoke again; he pressed the tips of his fingers together; he surveyed the lady through his glasses.
"Miss Arnott, will you permit me to speak to you quite frankly?"
"Of course, that's what I want you to do."
"Then take my very strong advice and don't have anything to do with Mr Baker. Don't interfere between him and the course of justice, don't intrude yourself in the matter at all. Keep yourself rigidly outside it."
"Mr Stacey! Why?"
"If you will allow me to make the remarks to which I just now alluded, possibly, by the time I have finished, you will apprehend some of my reasons. But before I commence you must promise that you will not be offended at whatever I may say. If you think that, for any cause whatever, you may be disposed to resent complete candour from an old fellow who has seen something of the world and who has your best interests very much at heart, please say so and I will not say a word."
"I shall not be offended."
"Miss Arnott, you are a very rich young lady."
"Well?"
"You are also a very young lady."
"Well again?"
"From such a young lady the world would--not unnaturally--expect a certain course of action."
"How do you mean?"
"Why don't you take up that position in the world to which you are on all accounts entitled?"
"Still I don't quite understand."
"Then I will be quite plain--why do you shut yourself up as if, to use a catch phrase, you were a woman with a past?"
Miss Arnott started perceptibly--the question was wholly unexpected. Rising from her chair she began to re-arrange some flowers in a vase on a table which was scarcely in need of her attentions.
"I was not aware that I did."
"Do you mean that seriously?"
"I imagined that I was entitled to live the sort of life I preferred to live without incurring the risk of criticism--that is what I mean."
"Already you are beginning to be offended. Let us talk of the garden. How is it looking? Your uncle was very proud of his garden. I certainly never saw anything finer than his roseries. Do you still keep them up?"
"Never mind the roseries, or the garden either. Why do you advise me not to move a finger in defence of an innocent man, merely because I choose to live my own life?"
"You put the question in a form of your own; which is not mine. To the question as you put it I have no answer."
"How would you put it?"
"Miss Arnott, in this world no one can escape criticism;--least of all unattached young ladies;--particularly young ladies in your very unusual position. I happen to know that nothing would have pleased your uncle better than that you should be presented at Court. Why don't you go to Court? Why don't you take your proper place in Society?"
"Because I don't choose."
"May I humbly entreat you to furnish me with your reasons?"
"Nor do I choose to give you my reasons."
"I am sorry to hear it, since your manner forces me to assume that you have what you hold to be very sufficient reasons. Already I hear you spoken of as the 'Peculiar Miss Arnott.' I am bound to admit not wholly without cause. Although you are a very rich woman you are living as if you were, relatively, a very poor one. Your income remains practically untouched. It is accumulating in what, under the circumstances, I am constrained to call almost criminal fashion. All sorts of unpleasant stories are being connected with your name--lies, all of them, no doubt; but still, there they are. You ought to do something which would be equivalent to nailing them to the counter. Now there is this most unfortunate affair upon your own estate. I am bound to tell you that if you go out of your way to associate yourself with this man Baker, who, in spite of what you suggest, is certainly guilty in some degree, and who, in any case, is an irredeemable scoundrel; if you persist in pouring out money like water in his defence, although you will do him no manner of good, you may do yourself very grave and lasting injury."
"That is your opinion?"
"It is."
"I thank you for expressing it so clearly. Now may I ask you for the name of the gentleman--the expert criminal lawyer--to whom you referred? and then we will change the subject."
He gave her the name, and, later, in the seclusion of his own chamber, criticised her mentally, as Mr Whitcomb once had done.
"That girl's a character of an unusual kind. I shouldn't be surprised if she knows more about that lamentable business in Cooper's Spinney than she is willing to admit, and, what's more, if she isn't extremely careful she may get herself into very serious trouble."
The next morning Miss Arnott sent a groom over to Oak Dene with this curt note:--
"I shall be at the Wycke Cross--at the four crossroads--this afternoon at half-past three, alone. I shall be glad if you will make it convenient to be there also. There is something which it is essential I should say to you.V. A."
The groom brought back, in an envelope, Mr Hugh Morice's visiting card. On the back of it were four words,--
"I will be there."
And Mr Hugh Morice was there before the lady. Miss Arnott saw his car drawn up by the roadside, long before she reached it. She slackened her pace as she approached. When she came abreast of it she saw that its owner was sitting on a stile, enjoying a pipe. Taking his pipe out of his mouth, his cap off his head, he advanced to her in silence.
"Am I late?" she asked.
"No, it is I who am early."
They exchanged glances--as it were, neutral glances--as if each were desirous, as a preliminary, of making a study of the other. She saw--she could not help seeing--that he was not looking well. Theinsouciancewith which, mentally, she had always associated him, had fled. The touch of the daredevil, of the man who looks out on to the world without fear and with something of humorous scorn, that also had gone. She did not know how old he was, but he struck her, all at once, as being older than she had supposed. The upper part of his face was seamed with deep lines which had not always, she fancied, been so apparent. There were crow's-feet in the corners of his eyes, the eyes themselves seemed sunken. The light in them was dimmed, or perhaps she only fancied it. It was certain that he stooped more than he had used to do. His head hung forward between his broad shoulders, as if the whole man were tired, body, soul and spirit. There was something in his looks, in his bearing, a suggestion of puzzlement, of bewilderment, of pain, which might come from continuous wrestling with an insistent problem which defied solution, which touched her to the heart, made her feel conscious of a feeling she had not meant to feel. And because she had not intended to harbour anything even remotely approaching such a feeling, she resented its intrusion, and fought against herself so that she might appear to this man to be even harder than she had proposed to be.
On his part he saw, seated in her motor car, a woman whom he would have given all that he possessed to have taken in his arms and kept there. His acumen was greater, perhaps, than hers; he saw with a clearness which frightened him, her dire distress, the weight of trouble which bore her down. She might think that she hid it from the world, but, to him, it was as though the flesh had been stripped from her nerves, and he saw them quivering. He knew something of this girl's story; this woman whose childhood should have been scarcely yet behind her, and he knew that it had brought that upon her face which had no right to be there even though her years had attained to the Psalmist's span. And because his whole nature burned within him with a desire that she might be to him as never woman had been before, he was unmanned. He was possessed by so many emotions, all warring with each other, that, for the moment, he was like a helmless ship, borne this way and that, he knew not why or whither.
Then she was so hard, looked at him out of eyes which were so cold, spoke to him as if it were only because she was compelled that she spoke to him at all. How could he dare to hint--though only in a whisper--at sympathy, or comfort? He knew that she would resent it as bitterly as though he had lashed her with a whip. And, deeming herself the victim of an outrage, the probabilities were that she would snatch the supposititious weapon out of his hand and strike him with all her force with the butt of it.
So that, in the end, her trouble would be worse at the end than it had been at the beginning. He felt that this was a woman who would dree her own weird, and that from him, of all men in the world, she would brook only such interference, either by deed word, as she herself might choose to demand.
When they had done studying one another she put her hand up to her face, as if to brush away cobwebs which might have been spun before her eyes, and she asked,--
"Shall we talk here?"
His tone was as stiff and formal as hers had been.
"As you please. It depends upon the length to which our conversation is likely to extend. As I think it possible that what you have to say may not be capable of compression within the limits of a dozen words, I would, suggest that you should draw your car a little to one side here, where it would not be possible for the most imaginative policeman to regard it as an obstruction to the traffic which seldom or never comes this way; and that you should then descend from it, and say what you have to say under the shade of these trees, and in the neighbourhood of this stile."
She acted on his suggestion, and took off the long dust cloak which she was wearing, and tossed it on the seat of her car. Going to the stile she leaned one hand on the cross bar. He held out his pipe towards her.
"May I smoke?"
"Certainly, why not? I think it possible that you may require its soothing influence before we have gone very far."
There was something in her voice which seemed as if it had been meant to sting him; it only made him smile.
"I also think that possible."
She watched him as, having refilled and relighted his pipe, he puffed at it, as if he found in the flavour of the tobacco that consolation at which she had hinted. Perceiving that he continued to smoke in silence she spoke again, as if she resented being constrained to speak.
"I presume that you have some idea of what it is I wish to say to you?"
He shook his head.
"I haven't."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. If you will forgive my saying so, and I fear that you are in an unforgiving mood, I have ceased attempting to forecast what, under any stated set of circumstances, you may either say or do. You are to me what mathematicians call an unknown quantity; you may stand for something or for nothing. One never knows."
"I have not the honour to understand you, Mr Morice."
"Don't imagine that I am even hinting at a contradiction; but I hope, for both our sakes, that you understand me better than I do you."
"I think that's very possible."
"I think so also; alas! that it should be so."
"You may well say, alas!"
"You are right; I may."
She was silent, her lips twitching, as if with impatience or scorn.
"My acquaintance with the world is but a slight one, Mr Morice; and, unfortunately, in one respect it has been of an almost uniform kind. I have learned to associate with the idea of a man something not agreeable. I hoped, at one time, that you would prove to be a variation; but you haven't. That is why, in admitting that I did understand you a little, I think that you were justified in saying, alas!"
"That, however, is not why I said it, as I should have imagined you would have surmised; although I admire the ingenuity with which you present your point of view. But, may I ask if you have ordered me to present myself at Wyche Cross with the intention of favouring me with neatly turned remarks on the subject of men in general and of myself in particular?"
"You know I haven't."
"I am waiting to know it."
"I had not thought that anyone fashioned in God's image could play so consummately the hypocrite."
"Of all the astounding observations! Is it possible that you can have overlooked your own record?"
As he spoke the blood dyed her face; she swerved so suddenly that one felt that if it had not been for the support of the stile she might have fallen. On the instant he was penitent.
"I beg your pardon; but you use me in such a fashion; you say such things, that you force me to use my tongue."
"Thank you, you need not apologise. The taunt was deserved. I have played the hypocrite; I know it--none know it better. But let me assure you that, latterly, I have continued to play the hypocrite for your sake."
"For my sake?"
"For your sake and for yours only, and you know it."
"I know it? This transcends everything! The courage of such a suggestion, even coming from you, startles me almost into speechlessness. May I ask you to explain?"
"I will explain, if an explanation is necessary, which we both know it is not!"
He waved his pipe with an odd little gesture in the air.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed.
Outwardly she was the calmer of the two. She stood upright and motionless; he was restless and fidgety, as if uneasy both in mind and body. She kept her eyes fixed steadily upon his face; he showed a disposition to elude her searching glance. When she spoke her tone was cool and even.
"You have accused me of playing the hypocrite. It is true, I have. I have allowed the world to regard me as a spinster, when I was a married woman; as free when I was bound. I have told you that I should have ceased before this to play the hypocrite, if it had not been for you. You have--pretended--to doubt it. Well, you are that kind of man. And it is because you are that kind of man that I am constrained to ask if you wish me now to cease to play the hypocrite and save Jim Baker's life?"
"Is not that a question for your consideration rather than for mine?"
"You propose to place the responsibility upon my shoulders!"
"Would you rather it were on mine?"
"That is where it properly belongs."
"In dealing with you I am at a serious disadvantage, since you are a woman and I am a man. The accident of our being of different sexes prevents my expressing myself with adequate precision."
"You appear to be anxious to take refuge even when there is nothing behind which you can hide. The difference in our sexes has never prevented you from saying to me exactly what you pleased, how you pleased--you know it. Nor do I intend to allow your manhood to shelter you. Mr Morice, the time for fencing's past. When life and death are hanging in the balance, words are weightless. I ask you again, do you intend to save Jim Baker's life?"
"I have yet to learn that it is in imminent peril."
"Then acquire that knowledge now from me. I am informed that if someone is not discovered, on whom the onus of guilt can be indubitably fixed, the probabilities are that Jim Baker will be hanged for murder."
"And you suggest that I should discover that--unhappy person?"
"I ask you if you do not think the discovery ought to be made, to save that wretched creature?"
"What I am anxious to get at, before I commit myself to an answer is this--presuming that I think the discovery should be made, do you suggest that it should be made by you or by me?"
"Mr Morice, I will make my meaning plainer, if the thing be possible. When--that night--in the wood it happened, I thought that it was done for me. I still think that might have been the motive; partly, I confess, because I cannot conceive of any other, though the misapprehension was as complete as it was curious. I did not require that kind of service--God forbid! And, therefore, thinking this--that I was, though remotely, the actual cause--it appears to me that I was, and am, unable to speak, lest it would seem that I was betraying one whose intention was to render me a service."
"For all I understand of what you're saying you might be talking in an unknown tongue. You speak of the futility of fencing, when you do nothing else but fence! To the point, if you please. What service do you suppose was intended to be rendered you that night in Cooper's Spinney?"
There was a perceptible pause before she answered, as if she were endeavouring to summon all her courage to her aid.
"Mr Morice, when you killed my husband, did you not do it for me?"
His countenance, as she put this question, would have afforded an excellent subject for a study in expression. His jaw dropped open, his pipe falling unnoticed to the ground; his eyes seemed to increase in magnitude; the muscles of his face became suddenly rigid--indeed the rigidity of his whole bearing suggested a paralytic seizure. For some seconds he seemed to have even ceased to breathe. Then he gave a long gasping breath, and with in his attitude still some of that unnatural rigidity, he gave her question for question.
"Why do you ask me such a monstrous thing? You! you!"
Something in his manner and appearance seemed to disturb her more than anything which had gone before. She drew farther away from him, and closer to the stile.
"You forced me to ask you."
"I forced you to ask me--that!"
"Why do you look at me so? Do you wish to frighten me?"
"Do you think I didn't see? Have you forgotten?"
"See? Forgotten? What do you mean?"
"Oh, woman! that you should be so young and yet so old; so ignorant and yet so full of knowledge; that you should seem a shrine of all the virtues, and be a thing all evil!"
"Mr Morice, why do you look at me like that! you make me afraid!"
"Would I could make you afraid--of being the thing you are!"
"It's not fair of you to speak to me like that I--it's not fair! I'm not so wicked! When I married--"
"When you married! No more of that old wife's tale. Stick to the point, please--to the point! You whited sepulchre! is it possible that, having shown one face to the world, you now propose to show another one to me, and that you think I'll let you? At anyrate, I'll have you know that I do know you for what you are! Till now I have believed that that dead man, your husband, Mrs Champion, was as you painted him--an unspeakable hound; but now, for the first time, I doubt, since you dared to ask me that monstrous thing, knowing that I saw you kill him!"
She looked at him as if she were searching his face for something she could not find on it.
"Is it possible that you wish me to understand that you are speaking seriously?"
"What an actress you are to your finger-tips! Do you think I don't know you understand?"
"Then you know more than I do, for I myself am not so sure. My wish is to understand, and--I am beginning to be afraid I do."
He waved his hand with an impatient gesture.
"Come, no more of that! Let me beg you to believe that I am not quite the fool that you suppose. You asked me just now if I intend to save Jim Baker's life? Well, that's where I'm puzzled. At present it's not clear to me that it's in any serious danger. I think that the very frankness of his story may prove to be his salvation; I doubt if they'll be able to establish anything beyond it. But should the contrary happen, and he finds himself confronted by the gallows, then the problem will have to be fairly faced. I shall have to decide what I am prepared to do. Of course my action would be to some extent guided by yours, that is why I'm so anxious to learn what, under those circumstances, you would do."
"Shall I tell you?"
"If you would be so very kind."
"I should send for Granger and save Jim Baker's life."
"By giving yourself up?"
She stood straighter.
"No, Mr Morice, by giving you up."
"But again I don't understand."
"You have had ample warning and ample opportunity. You might have hidden yourself on the other side of the world if you chose. If you did not choose the fault was yours."
"But why should I hide?"
"If you forced me, I should tell Granger that it was you who killed Robert Champion, and that I had proofs of it, and so Jim Baker would be saved."
Again he threw out his arms with the gesture which suggested not only impatience, but also lack of comprehension.
"Then am I to take it that you propose to add another item to your list of crimes?"
"It is not a crime to save the innocent by punishing the guilty."
"The guilty, yes; but in that case where would you be?"
"I, however unwillingly, should be witness against you."
"You would, would you? A pleasant vista your words open to one's view."
"You could relieve me of the obligation--easily."
"I don't see how--but that is by the way. Do you know it begins to occur to me that the singularity of your attitude may be induced by what is certainly the remote possibility that you are ignorant of how exactly the matter stands. Is it possible that you are not aware that I saw you--actually saw you--kill that man."
"What story are you attempting to use as a cover? Are you a liar as well as that thing?"
"Don't fence! Are you denying that I saw you kill him, and that when you ran away I tried to catch you?"
"Of course I deny it! That you should dare to ask me such a question!"
"This is a wonderful woman!"
"You appear to be something much worse than a wonderful man--something altogether beyond any conception I had formed of you. Your suppositional contingency may be applied to you; it is just possible that you don't know how the matter stands, and that that explains your attitude. It is true that I did not see you kill that man."
"That certainly is true."
"But I heard you kill him."
"You heard me?"
"I heard you--I was only a little way off. First I heard the shot--Baker's shot. Then I heard him go. Then I heard you come."
"You heard me come?"
"I heard you strike him; I heard him fall. Then I saw you running from the thing that you had done."
"You saw me running?"
"I saw you running. The moon was out; I saw you clearly running among the bushes and the trees. I did not know who it was had come until I saw you, then I knew. After you had gone I was afraid to go or stay. Then I went to see what you had done. I saw your knife lying on the ground. I picked it up and took it home with me."
"I can easily believe you took it home with you."
"I have it now--to be produced, if need be in evidence."
"Of what?"
"Of your guilt! of what else?"
"She asks me such a question! Now let me tell you my story. If it lacks something of the air of verisimilitude which gives yours such a finish, let me remind you that there are those who lie like truth. After we had parted I discovered that I had left my knife behind--the one with which I had cut our initials on the tree. It was a knife I prized--never mind why. When I had allowed sufficient time to enable you to have reached home I returned to look for it. To my surprise, as I approached our trysting-place I heard voices--yours and a man's. You were neither of you speaking in a whisper. At night in the open air sound travels far. When I came a little nearer I saw you and a man. So I withdrew till I was out of sight again, and could only hear the faint sound of distant voices. Presently a gun was fired. I rushed forward to see by whom, and at what. When I came near enough there was a man staggering about underneath the tree. I saw you come out from among the bushes and look at him. You picked up a knife from the ground--my knife. I saw you drive it into his chest. As he fell--for ever--you ran off into the forest and I ran after you."
"You ran after me! after me?"
"After you; but you ran so quickly, or you knew your way so well, or I blundered, or something, because, after you had once disappeared in the wood, I never caught sight of you."
"And have you invented this story--which you tell extremely well--to save your neck at the expense of mine?"
"What an odd inquiry! Referring to your own tale, may I ask what motive you would ascribe to me, if you were asked what you suppose induced me, a peaceful, law-abiding citizen, to kill at sight--under circumstances of peculiar cowardice--an inoffensive stranger?"
"I imagined that you knew he was my husband, and that you killed him to relieve me. You see I credited you with something like chivalry."
"Did you indeed. And you would prostitute the English language by calling conduct of that sort chivalry! However, it is plainly no use our pushing the discussion further. We appear to understand each other now if we never did before. Each proposes to save Jim Baker's life--at a pinch--by sacrificing the other. Good! I must hold myself prepared. I had dreamt of discovering means of saving you from the consequences of your crime, but I had scarcely intended to go the lengths which you suggest--to offer myself instead of you. But then I did not credit you with the qualifications which you evidently possess. In the future I shall have to realise that, even if I save your life, I cannot save your soul, because, plainly, you intend to perjure that lightheartedly, and to stain it with the blood of two men instead of only one. Let me give you one warning. I see the strength of the case which your ingenious--and tortuous--brain may fabricate against me. Still, I think that it may fail; and that you may yourself fall into the pit which you have digged for me, for this reason. They know me, hereabouts and elsewhere; my record's open to all the world. They don't know you, as yet; when they do they'll open their eyes and yours. Already some unpleasant tales are travelling round the country. I myself have been forced to listen to one or two, and keep still. When my story is told, and yours, I am afraid that your story will prove to be your own destruction; it will hang you, unless there comes a reprieve in time. I saw you kill your husband. You know I saw you; you know that I can prove I saw you. Therefore, take the advice I have already tendered, go back to Lake Como and further. Lest, peradventure, by staying you lose your life to save Jim Baker's. Henceforward, Mrs Champion, the buttons are off our foils; we fight with serious weapons--I against you and you against me. At least we have arrived at that understanding; to have a clear understanding of any sort is always something, and so, good-day."