CHAPTER XI
MR. GOLDBERG, the manager and proprietor of the Parade Drug Store, was a man who possessed neither a sense of imagination nor the spirit of romance. He sent peremptorily for Timothy, and Timothy came with a feeling that all was not well.
“Mr. Anderson,” said Goldberg in his best magisterial manner, “I took you into my shop because I was short of a man and because I understood that you had had some business experience.”
“I have business experience,” said Timothy carefully, “of a kind.”
“I gave you particular instructions,” said Mr. Goldberg solemnly, “on one very vital point. We carry a full line of all the best proprietorial medicines, and our customers can always get them upon application. Each of those medicines we duplicate, as you know, providing the same constituents and charging some sixpence to a shilling less—in fact, we are out to save the public from being robbed.”
“I understand you,” said Timothy, “but I don’t see much difference between robbing the public and robbing the patent medicine proprietors, and all that just-as-good stuff never did impress me, anyway. It stands to reason,” he said, leaning over the desk and speaking with the earnestness of a crusader, “that the advertised article must be more even in quality and it must be good all round. You can’t advertise a bad article and get away with it, except on the first sale, and that doesn’t pay the advertiser. The goods sell the goods, and the advertisement is only to make you take the first lick.”
“I do not want a lecture on advertising or on commercial morality,” said Mr. Goldberg with ominous calm. “I merely want to tell you that you were overheard by my chief assistant telling a customer not to ‘take a chance’ on one of my own pills.”
“That’s right,” said Timothy, nodding his head vigorously. “Guilty, my lord. What about it?”
“I have had a further complaint,” said Mr. Goldberg, consulting with elaborate ceremony a little notebook. “I understand that you have initiated the awful practice of offering to toss customers for their change. People have written me strong letters of complaint about it.”
“Because they lost,” said the indignant Timothy; “what’s wrong about that, anyway, Mr. Goldberg? I don’t pocket the money, and I win twice out of every three times. If a fellow likes to take a chance as to whether he gets sixpence or we get a shilling, why worry?”
The outraged Mr. Goldberg brindled.
“That sort of thing may be all right at a country fair or even in a country shop,” he said, “but it is not good enough for the Parade Drug Store, Bournemouth, and I’ll dispense with your services as from this morning.”
“You’re losing a good man,” said Timothy solemnly, but Mr. Goldberg did not seem to take that loss to heart.
All “Take A Chance Anderson’s” jobs ended violently. He never conceived of them ending in any other way, and invariably regarded the sum of money which was received in lieu of notice, or as compensation for breach of contract, as being something in the nature of a nest-egg which a kindly Providence had foreordained, and he was neither cast down nor elated by the crisis in his affairs when, by a fortunate accident, he met Mary Maxell—the fortune was apparent, but the accident belonged to the category which determined the hour at which trains leave stations.
Hitherto, on the girl’s part, these meetings had been fraught with a certain amount of apprehension, if not terror. They had begun when Timothy had stopped her on the morning after his quarrel with Lady Maxell, and had made bland inquiries as to that lady’s condition. Then she had been in a panic and frantically anxious to end the interview, and it required all her self-restraint to prevent her flying at top speed from this wicked young man who had been so abominably rude.
At their second meeting he had greeted her as an old friend, and she had left him with the illusion of a life-time acquaintance. Hereafter matters went smoothly, and they went so because Timothy Anderson was unlike any of the other boys she had ever met.
He paid her no compliments, he did not grow sentimental, he neither tried to hold her hand nor kiss her, nor was he ever oppressed by that overwhelming melancholy which is the heritage and pride of youth.
Not once did he hint at an early decline or the possibility of his going away to die in far lands. Instead he kept her in screams of laughter at his interpretation of movie plays in the making. He did not ask for a keepsake; the only request he made of her in this direction was one which first took her breath away. Thereafter she never met him unless she had in the bag which slung from her wrist one small box of matches; for “Take A Chance” Anderson had never possessed or carried the means of ignition for his cigarette for one whole hour together.
Timothy told her most of what the proprietor of the Parade Drug Store had told him. The girl thought it was a joke, because that was exactly the way Timothy presented the matter.
“But you won’t be going away soon?” she asked.
“Not till I go abroad,” replied Timothy calmly.
“Are you going abroad too?” she asked in surprise.
He nodded.
“I’m going to Paris and Monte Carlo—especially to Monte Carlo,” he said, “and afterwards I may run across to Algeria or to Egypt.”
She looked at him with a new respect. She was less impressed by the great possessions which his plans betrayed than by his confident independence, and dimly she wondered why he was working at a drug-store for low wages and wondered, too, whether he was——
“What are you blushing about?” asked Timothy curiously.
“I wasn’t blushing,” she protested; “I was just wondering whether I could ever afford a trip like that.”
“Of course you can,” said the young man scornfully. “If I can afford it, you can, can’t you? If I go abroad and stay at the best hotels, and go joy rides in the Alps and plan all this when I haven’t got fifteen shillings over my rent——”
“You haven’t fifteen shillings over your rent!” she repeated, aghast. “But how can you go abroad without money?”
Timothy was genuinely astounded that she could ask so absurd a question.
“Why, I’d take a chance on that,” he said. “A little thing like money doesn’t really count.”
“I think you’re very silly,” she said. “Oh, there was something I wanted to tell you, Mr. Anderson.”
“You may call me Timothy,” he said.
“I don’t want to call you Timothy,” she replied.
He shook his head with a pained expression.
“It’ll be ever so much more sociable if you call me Timothy and I call you Mary.”
“We can be very sociable without that familiarity,” she said severely. “I was just going to tell you something.”
They sat on the grass together, on the shadow fringe of a big oak and the spring sunshine wove its restless arabesques on her lap.
“Do you know,” she said after a pause, “that last night I had two queer experiences and I was scared; oh, scared to death!”
“Eating things at night,” said Timothy oracularly, “especially before you go to bed——”
“I wasn’t dreaming,” she said indignantly, “nor was it a nightmare. I won’t tell you if you’re so horrid.”
“I’m only speaking as an ex-chemist and druggist,” said Timothy gravely; “but please forgive me. Tell me what it is, Mary.”
“Miss Maxell,” she said.
“Miss Mary Maxell,” he compromised.
“First I’ll tell you the least worst,” she began. “It happened about one o’clock in the morning. I had gone to bed awfully tired, but somehow I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and walked about the room. I didn’t like putting on the light because that meant drawing down the blinds which I had let up when I went to bed, and the blinds make such a noise that I thought the whole of the house would hear. So I put on my dressing-gown and sat by the window. It was rather chilly, but my wrap was warm, and sitting there I dozed. I don’t know how long, but it was nearly an hour, I think. When I woke up I saw a man right in the centre of the lawn.”
Timothy was interested.
“What sort of a man?”
“That is the peculiar thing about it,” she said. “He wasn’t a white man.”
“A coon?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“No, I think it must have been a Moor. He wore a long white dress that reached down to his ankles, and over that he had a big, heavy black cloak.”
Timothy nodded.
“Well?”
“He went round the corner of the house towards uncle’s private stairway and he was gone quite a long time. My first thought was to awaken uncle and tell him, but then I remembered that Sir John had spent a long time in Morocco and possibly he knew that the man was about the house. You see, we have had Moorish visitors before, when ships have come to Poole. Once we had a very important man, a Kaid, and Sir John made queer tea for him in glasses with mint and stuff. So I just didn’t know what to do. Whilst I was wondering whether I ought not at least to wake Lady Maxell, he reappeared, walked across the lawn and went down the path which leads to the back entrance—you’re laughing at me,” she said suddenly.
“What you mistake for a laugh,” said Timothy solemnly, “is merely one large smile of pleasure at being in your confidence.”
She was in two minds as to whether she would be angry or pleased, but his tone changed to a more serious one.
“I don’t like the idea of the gaudy East wandering loose under your bedroom window in the middle of the night,” he said. “Did you tell Lady Maxell this morning?”
The girl shook her head.
“No, she was up very early and has been out all day. I have not seen her—in fact, she was not at breakfast. Now I’ll tell you the really serious thing that happened, and I do hope, Mr. Anderson, that you won’t be flippant.”
“Trust me,” said Timothy.
The girl had no reason to complain of his attitude when she had described the shooting incident. He was aghast.
“That is terrible!” he said vigorously. “Why, it might have hit you!”
“Of course it might have hit me,” she said indignantly. “That’s the whole point of my story, so far as you are concerned—I mean, so far as I am concerned,” she added hastily.
“So fax as I am concerned too,” said Timothy quietly. “I just hate the idea of anything even frightening you.”
She rose hurriedly.
“I am going to shop now,” she said.
“What’s the hurry?” grumbled Timothy.
“Mr. Anderson,” she said, ignoring his question, “I don’t want you to think that uncle is feeling badly about you because of what has happened in the house. He spoke to me of you last night, and he spoke very nicely. I am worried to death about Sir John. He has made enemies in his life, and I am sure that this shooting affair is the sequel to some old feud.”
Timothy nodded.
“I should say that is so,” he said.
He looked down at the grass very thoughtfully and then:
“Well, I’ll go home,” he said. “I had better sleep this afternoon if I am to be up all night.”
“Up all night?” she said in surprise. “What is happening? Is there a ball or something?”
“There will be something livelier than a ball,” he said grimly, “if I find anybody in your garden to-night. And Miss Maxell, if you look out of your window and you see a solitary figure on sentry-go don’t shoot, because it will be me.”
“But you mustn’t,” she gasped. “Please don’t do it, Mr. Anderson. Uncle would be——”
He stopped her with a gesture.
“Possibly nobody will come to-night,” he said, “and as likely as not I shall be pinched by the police as a suspicious character. But there’s a chance that somebody will come, and that’s the chance I’m going to take.”
CHAPTER XII
TRUE to his word, he returned to his lodgings and spent the afternoon in slumber. He had the gift which all great men possess, of being able to sleep at will. He was staying at a boarding-house, and occupied a room which had originally been a side veranda, but had been walled in and converted into an extra bedroom. It was a remarkably convenient room for him, as he had discovered on previous occasions. He had but to open the window and drop on to the grass to make his exit without anybody in the house being the wiser. More to the point, he could return at any hour by the same route without disturbing the household.
He had his supper, and whilst it was still very light he went out to reconnoitre Sir John’s demesne. He was able to make the circuit of the house, which occupied a corner site and was isolated by two lanes, and he saw nobody until, returning to the front of the house, a car drove up and a woman alighted.
He had no difficulty in recognising Lady Maxell, but the taxi interested him more than the lady. It was smothered with mud and had evidently come a long journey.
As evidently she had hired it in some distant town and she had not as yet finished with it, because she gave the man some directions and money, and from the profound respect which the chauffeur showed, it was clear that that money was merely a tip.
Timothy stood where he could clearly be seen, but her back was toward him all the time and she did not so much as glance in his direction when she passed through the gate and up the garden path.
It was curious, thought Timothy, that she did not take the car up the drive to the house. More curious was it that she should, at this late hour of the evening, have further use for it.
He returned to his room, full of theories, the majority of which were wholly wild and improbable. He lay on his bed, indulging in those dreams which made up the happiest part of his life. Of late he had taken a new and a more radiant pattern to the web of his fancy and——
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” he said in disgust, rolling over and sitting up with a yawn.
He heard the feet of the boarders on the gravel path outside, and once he heard a girl say evidently to a visitor:
“Do you see that funny room! That is Mr. Anderson’s.”
There was still an hour or so to be passed, and he joined the party in the parlour so restless and distrait as to attract attention and a little mild raillery from his fellow guests. He went back to his room, turned on the light and pulled a trunk from under the bed.
Somehow his mind had been running all day upon that erring cousin whose name he bore and whose disappearance from public life was such a mystery. Possibly it was Sir John’s words which had brought Alfred Cartwright to his mind. His mother had left him a number of family documents, which, with the indolence of youth, he had never examined very closely. He had the impression that they consisted in the main of receipts, old diplomas of his father’s (who was an engineer) and sundry other family documents which were not calculated to excite the curiosity of the adventurous youth.
He took out the two big envelopes in which these papers were kept and turned them on to the bed, examining them one by one. Why his cousin should be in his mind, why he should have taken this action at that particular moment, the psychologist and the psychical expert alone can explain. They may produce in explanation such esoteric phenomena as auras, influences, and telepathies, and perhaps they are right.
He had not searched long before he came upon a small package of newspaper cuttings, bound about by a rubber band. He read them at first without interest, and then without comprehension. There was one cutting, however, which had been clipped from its context, which seemed to tell the whole story of the rest. It ran:
“When Cartwright stood up for sentence he did not seem to be greatly troubled by his serious position. As the words ‘twenty years’ passed Mr. Justice Maxell’s lips, he fell back as if he had been shot. Then, springing to the edge of the dock, he hurled an epithet at his lordship. Some of his business associates suggest that the learned judge was a partner of Cartwright’s—an astonishing and most improper suggestion to make. In view of the statement that the prisoner made before the trial, when suggestions had been made in a newspaper that the judge had been connected with him in business years before, and remembering that Cartwright’s statement was to the effect that he had had no business transactions with the judge, it seems as though the outburst was made in a fit of spleen at the severity of the sentence. Sir John Maxell, after the case, took the unusual step of informing a Press representative that he intended placing his affairs in the hands of a committee for investigation, and had invited the Attorney-General to appoint that committee. ‘I insist upon this being done,’ he said, ‘because after the prisoner’s accusation I should not feel comfortable until an impartial committee had examined my affairs.’ It is understood that after the investigation the learned judge intends retiring from the Bench.”
“When Cartwright stood up for sentence he did not seem to be greatly troubled by his serious position. As the words ‘twenty years’ passed Mr. Justice Maxell’s lips, he fell back as if he had been shot. Then, springing to the edge of the dock, he hurled an epithet at his lordship. Some of his business associates suggest that the learned judge was a partner of Cartwright’s—an astonishing and most improper suggestion to make. In view of the statement that the prisoner made before the trial, when suggestions had been made in a newspaper that the judge had been connected with him in business years before, and remembering that Cartwright’s statement was to the effect that he had had no business transactions with the judge, it seems as though the outburst was made in a fit of spleen at the severity of the sentence. Sir John Maxell, after the case, took the unusual step of informing a Press representative that he intended placing his affairs in the hands of a committee for investigation, and had invited the Attorney-General to appoint that committee. ‘I insist upon this being done,’ he said, ‘because after the prisoner’s accusation I should not feel comfortable until an impartial committee had examined my affairs.’ It is understood that after the investigation the learned judge intends retiring from the Bench.”
Timothy gasped. So that was the explanation. That was why Maxell had written to him, that was why he made no reference at all to his father, but to this disreputable cousin of his. Slowly he returned the package to its envelope, dropped it into his trunk and pushed the trunk under the bed.
And that was the secret of Cousin Cartwright’s disappearance. He might have guessed it; he might even have known had he troubled to look at these papers.
He sat on the bed, his hands clasping his knees. It was not a pleasant reflection that he had a relative, and a relative moreover after whom he was named, serving what might be a life sentence in a convict establishment. But what made him think of the matter to-night?
“Mr. Anderson! Timothy!”
Timothy looked round with a start. The man whose face was framed in the open window might have been forty, fifty or sixty. It was a face heavily seamed and sparsely bearded—a hollow-eyed, hungry face, but those eyes burnt like fire. Timothy jumped up.
“Hullo!” he said. “Who are you ‘Timothying’?”
“You don’t know me, eh?” the man laughed unpleasantly. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, you can come in,” said Timothy.
He wondered what old acquaintance this was who had come to the tramp level, and rapidly turned over in his mind all the possible candidates for trampdom he had met.
“You don’t know me, eh?” said the man again. “Well, I’ve tracked you here, and I’ve been sitting in those bushes for two hours. I heard one of the boarders say that it was your window and I waited till it was dark before I came out.”
“All this is highly interesting,” said Timothy, surveying the shrunken figure without enthusiasm, “but who are you?”
“I had a provisional pardon,” said the man, “and they put me in a sanatorium—I’ve something the matter with one of my lungs. It was always a trouble to me. I was supposed to stay in the sanatorium—that was one of the terms on which I was pardoned—but I escaped.”
Timothy stared at him with open mouth.
“Alfred Cartwright!” he breathed.
The man nodded.
“That’s me,” he said.
Timothy looked down at the edge of the black box.
“So that is why I was thinking about you,” he said. “Well, this beats all! Sit down, won’t you?”
He pulled a chair up for his visitor and again gazed on him with curiosity but without affection. Something in Timothy’s attitude annoyed Cartwright.
“You’re not glad to see me?” he said.
“Not very,” admitted Timothy. “The truth is, you’ve only just come into existence so far as I am concerned. I thought you were dead.”
“You didn’t know?”
Timothy shook his head.
“Not until a few minutes ago. I was reading the cuttings about your trial——”
“So that was what you were reading?” said the man. “I’d like to see ’em one of these days. Do you know what I’ve come for?”
It was only at that moment that Sir John flashed through Timothy’s mind.
“I guess what you’ve come after,” he said slowly. “You’re here to see Sir John Maxell.”
“I’m here to see Mister Justice Maxell,” said the man between his teeth. “You’re a good guesser.”
He took the stump of a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and lit it.
“John Maxell and I have a score to settle, and it is going to be settled very soon.”
“Tide and weather permitting,” said Timothy flippantly, recovering his self-possession. “All that vendetta stuff doesn’t go, Mr. Cartwright.” Then he asked in a flash: “Did you shoot at him last night?”
The man’s surprise was a convincing reply.
“Shoot at him? I only got to this place this afternoon. It’s more likely he’s waiting to shoot at me, for the sanatorium people will have telegraphed to him the moment I was missing.”
Timothy walked to the window and pulled down the blinds.
“Now tell me, Mr. Cartwright, before we go any farther, do you still persist in the story you told the court, that the judge was a party to your swindle?”
“A party to it!” said the other man furiously. “Of course he was! I was using the money of my companies to buy concessions from the Moorish Government, as much on his behalf as on mine. He wasn’t in the Brigot swindle—but he held shares in the company I was financing. We located a gold mine in the Angera country, and Maxell and I went across to Europe every year regularly to look after our property.
“We had to keep it quiet because we secured the concessions from the Pretender, knowing that he’d put the Sultan out of business the moment he got busy. If it had been known, the Sultan would have repudiated the concession, and our Government would have upheld the repudiation. Maxell speaks the language like a native, and I learnt enough to get on with El Mograb, who is the biggest thing amongst the rebel tribes. El Mograb wanted us to stay there, Maxell and I; he’d have made us shereefs or pashas, and I’d have done it, because I knew there was going to be an investigation sooner or later into the affairs of my companies. But Maxell wouldn’t have it. He always pretended that, so far as he knew, my financing was straight. You know the rest,” he said. “When I came before Maxell, I thought I was safe.”
“But Sir John allowed his affairs to be inspected,” said Timothy. “If he had been engaged with you in this Morocco business, there must have been papers to prove it.”
Cartwright laughed harshly.
“Of course he’d allow his affairs to be investigated,” he sneered. “Do you think that old fox couldn’tcacheall the documents that put him wrong? Papers? Why, he must have enough papers to hang him, if you could only find ’em!”
“What are you going to do?” asked Timothy.
There was one thing he was determined that this man shouldnotdo, and that was to disturb the peace of mind, not of Sir John Maxell or his wife, but of a certain goddess whose bedroom overlooked the lawn.
“What am I going to do?” replied Cartwright. “Why, I’m going up to get my share. And he’ll be lucky if that’s all he loses. One of the mines was sold to a syndicate last year—I had news of it in gaol. He didn’t get much for it because he was in a hurry to sell—I suppose his other investments must have been going wrong twelve months ago—but I want my share of that!”
Timothy nodded.
“Then you had best see Sir John in the morning. I will arrange an interview.”
“In the morning!” said the other contemptuously. “Suppose you make the arrangement, what would happen? When I went up there I should find a couple of cops waiting to pinch me. I know John! I’m going to see him to-night.”
“I think not,” said Timothy, and the man stared at him.
“You think not?” he said. “What has it to do with you?”
“Quite a lot,” said Timothy. “I merely state that you will not see him to-night.”
Cartwright stroked his bristly chin undecidedly and then:
“Oh, well,” he said in a milder tone, “maybe you can fix things up for me in the morning.”
“Where are you sleeping to-night?” asked Timothy. “Have you any money?”
He had money, a little; and he had arranged to sleep at the house of a man he had known in better times. Timothy accompanied him through the window and into the street, and walked with him to the end of the road.
“If my gamble had come off, you’d have benefited, Anderson,” said the man unexpectedly, breaking in upon another topic which they were discussing.
They parted, and Timothy watched him out of sight, then turned on and walked in the opposite direction, to take up his self-imposed vigil.
CHAPTER XIII
THERE was something in the air that was electrical, and Mary Maxell felt it as she sat at supper with Sir John and his wife. Maxell was unusually silent and his wife amazingly so. She was nervous and almost jumped when a remark was addressed to her. The old truculence which distinguished her every word and action, her readiness to take offence, to see a slight in the most innocent remark, and her combativeness generally, had disappeared; she was almost meek when she replied to her husband’s questions.
“I just went round shopping and then decided to call on a girl I had known a long time ago. She lives in the country, and I felt so nervous and depressed this morning that I thought a ride in a taxi would do me good.”
“Why didn’t you take our car?” asked the other.
“I didn’t decide until the last moment to go out to her, and then I went by train one way.”
Sir John nodded.
“I’m glad you went into the fresh air,” he said, “it will do you good. The country is not so beautiful as Honolulu, but it is not without its attractions.”
It was unusual for the Judge to be sarcastic, but it was less usual for Lady Maxell to accept sarcasm without a retort. To Mary’s surprise she made no reply, though a faint smile curved those straight lips of hers for a second.
“Do you think it was a burglar last night?” she asked suddenly.
“Good heavens, no!” said Maxell. “Burglars do not shoot up the house they burgle.”
“Do you think it is safe to have all this money in the house?” she asked.
“Perfectly safe,” he said. “I do not think that need alarm you.”
No further reference was made to the matter, and presently Sir John went up to his study. Mrs. Maxell did not go to the parlour, but drew a chair to the fire in the dining-room and read, and the girl followed her example. Presently the elder woman left the room and was gone a quarter of an hour before she returned.
“Mary,” she said, so sweetly that the girl was startled, “such an annoying thing has happened—I have lost the key of my wardrobe. You borrowed one of Sir John’s duplicates the other day—where did you put the ring?”
John Maxell was a methodical and systematic man. He had a duplicate set of all the keys in the house, and these as a rule were kept in a small wall-safe in his own bedroom. He had never invited his wife to use that receptacle, but she had a shrewd idea that the combination which was denied to her had been given to the girl.
Mary hesitated.
“Don’t you think if you asked Uncle——”
“My dear,” smiled the lady, “if I went to him now, he’d never forgive me. If you know where the keys are, be an angel and get them for me.”
The girl rose, and Lady Maxell followed her upstairs. Her own room was next to her husband’s and communicated, but the door was invariably locked on Maxell’s side. Presently the girl came in to her.
“Here they are,” she said. “Please let me put them back quickly. I feel very guilty at having taken them at all without his permission.”
“And for goodness’ sake don’t tell him,” said Lady Maxell, examining the keys.
At last she found the one she wanted, but was a long time in the process. She opened her bureau and the girl took the big key-ring from her hand with such evident relief that Lady Maxell laughed.
It had been easier than she thought and unless she made a blunder, the key she had selected from the bunch while she was fumbling at the bureau, would make just the difference—just the difference.
It was not customary for Sir John to come down from his study to enjoy the ladies’ company after dinner, but on this evening he made an exception to his rule. He found his wife and ward reading, one on each side of the fireplace. Lady Maxell looked up when her husband came in.
“Here is a curious story, John,” she said. “I think it must be an American story, about a woman who robbed her husband and the police refused to arrest her.”
“There’s nothing curious about that,” said the lawyer, “in law a wife cannot rob her husband or a husband his wife.”
“So that if you came to my Honolulu estate and stole my pearls,” she said banteringly, “I could not have you arrested.”
“Except for walking in my sleep!” he said smilingly, and they both laughed together.
He had never seen her so amiable, and for the first time that day—it had been a very trying and momentous day—he had his misgivings. She, with the memory of her good day’s work, the excellent terms she had arranged with the skipper of theLord Lawrence, due to leave Southampton for Cadiz at daylight the next morning, had no misgivings at all, especially when she thought of a key she had placed under her pillow. She had had the choice of two boats, theLord Lawrenceand theSaffi, but theSaffi’svoyage would have been a long one, and its port of destination might hold discomfort which she had no wish to experience.
The household retired at eleven o’clock, and it was past midnight before Sadie Maxell heard her husband’s door close, and half an hour later before the click of the switch told her that his light had been extinguished.
He was a ready sleeper, but she gave him yet another half-hour before she opened the door of her bedroom and stepped out into the black corridor. She moved noiselessly towards the study, her only fear being that the baronet had locked the door before he came out. But this fear was not well founded, and the door yielded readily to her touch. She was dressed, and carried only a small attaché case filled with the bare necessities for the voyage.
She pushed the catch of her electric lamp, located the safe and opened it with no difficulty. She found herself surprisingly short of breath, and her heart beat at such a furious rate that she thought it must be audible to everybody in the house. The envelope with the money lay at the bottom of the others, and she transferred its contents to her attaché case in a few seconds.
Then her heart stood still. . . .
It was only the faintest creak she heard, but it came from a corner of the room where the door leading to the cupboard stairway was placed. She saw a faint grey line of light appear—the stairway had a glass roof and admitted enough light to show her that the door was slowly opening. She had to bite her lips to stop herself from screaming. To make her escape or to rouse Sir John was impossible, and she opened the attaché case again, and with trembling fingers felt for the little revolver which she had taken from her drawer. She felt safer now, yet she had not the courage to switch on the light.
She saw the figure of a man silhouetted in the opening, then the door closed, and her terror bred of itself a certain courage.
She flashed the light full on his face. The dead silence was broken when she whispered:
“Oh, God! Benson!”
“Who’s that?” he whispered, and snatched the torch from her hand.
He looked at her long and curiously, and then:
“I expected to find that Maxell had taken most of my possessions,” he said, “but I never thought he would take my wife!”
“Let us see what all this is about,” boomed the big voice of John Maxell almost in the man’s ear, he was so close, and suddenly the room was flooded with light.
CHAPTER XIV
THE self-appointed watcher found time pass very slowly. Twelve and one o’clock struck from a distant church, but there was no sign of midnight assassins, and the house, looking very solemn and quiet in the light of a waning moon, irritated and annoyed him. From the roadway where he paced silently to and fro—he had taken the precaution of wearing a pair of rubber-soled shoes—he could glimpse Mary’s window, and once he thought he saw her looking out.
He made a point of walking entirely round the house twice in every hour, and it was on one of these excursions that he heard a sound which brought him to a standstill. It was a sound like two pieces of flat board being smacked together sharply.
“Tap . . . tap!”
He stopped and listened, but heard nothing further. Then he retraced his footsteps to the front of the house and waited, but there was no sound or sign. Another half-hour passed, and then a patrolling policeman came along on the other side of the roadway. At the sight of the young man he crossed the road, and Jim recognised an acquaintance of his drug-store days. Nothing was to be gained by being evasive or mysterious, and Timothy told the policeman frankly his object.
“I heard about the shooting last night,” said the man, “and the inspector offered to put one of our men on duty here, but Sir John wouldn’t hear of it.”
He took a professional look at the house, and pointed to its dark upper windows.
“That house is asleep—you needn’t worry about that,” he said; “besides, it’ll be daylight in two hours, and a burglar wants that time to get home.”
Timothy paused irresolutely. It seemed absurd to wait any longer, and besides, to be consistent he must be prepared to adopt this watchman rôle every night.
There was no particular reason why Sir John Maxell’s enemy should choose this night or any other. He had half expected to see Cartwright and was agreeably disappointed that he did not loom into view.
“I think you’re right,” he said to the policeman. “I’ll walk along down the road with you.”
They must have walked a quarter of a mile, and were standing chatting at the corner of the street, when a sound, borne clearly on the night air, made both men look back in the direction whence they had come. They saw two glaring spots of light somewhere in the vicinity of the Judge’s house.
“There’s a car,” said the officer, “what is it doing there at this time of the morning? There is nobody sick in the house, is there?”
Timothy shook his head. Already he had begun to walk back, and the policeman, sensing something wrong, kept him company. They had covered half the distance which separated them from the car, when it began to move toward them, gathering speed. It flashed past and Timothy saw nothing save the driver, for the hood was raised and its canvas blinds hid whatever passenger it carried.
“It came in from the other end of the avenue,” said the policeman unnecessarily. “Maybe Sir John is going a long journey and is starting early.”
“Miss Maxell would have told me,” said Timothy, troubled. “I nearly took a chance and made a jump for that car.”
It was one of the few chances Timothy did not take, and one that he bitterly regretted afterwards.
“If you had,” said the practical policeman, “I should have been looking for the ambulance for you now.”
Timothy was no longer satisfied to play the rôle of the silent watcher. When he came to the house he went boldly through the gate and up the drive, and his warrant for the intrusion was the officer who followed him. It was then that he saw the open window of the girl’s room, and his heart leapt into his mouth. He quickened his step, but just as he came under the window, she appeared, and Timothy sighed his relief.
“Is that you?” she said in a low worried voice; “is that Mr. Anderson? Thank heaven you’ve come! Wait, I will come down and open the door for you.”
He walked to the entrance, and presently the door was opened and the girl, dressed in a wrapper, appeared. She tried to keep her voice steady, but the strain of the past half-hour had been too much for her, and she was on the verge of tears when Timothy put his arm about her shaking shoulders and forced her down into a chair.
“Sit down,” he said, “and tell us what has happened.”
She looked at the officer and tried to speak.
“There’s a servant,” said the policeman; “perhaps he knows something.”
A man dressed in shirt and trousers was coming down the stairs.
“I can’t make him hear,” he said, “or Lady Maxell, either.”
“What has happened?” asked Timothy.
“I don’t know, sir. The young lady woke me and asked me to rouse Sir John.”
“Wait, wait,” said the girl. “I am sorry I am so silly. I am probably making a lot of trouble over nothing. It happened nearly an hour ago, I was asleep and I heard a sound; thought I was dreaming of what happened last night. It sounded like two shots, but, whatever it was, it woke me.”
Timothy nodded.
“I know. I thought I heard them too,” he said.
“Then you were out there all the time?” she asked and put out her hand to him.
For that look she gave him Timothy would have stayed out the three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year.
“I lay for a very long time, thinking that the sound would wake my uncle, but I heard nothing.”
“Is your room near Sir John’s?” asked the policeman.
“No, mine is on this side of the building; Sir John and Lady Maxell sleep on the other side. I don’t know what it was, but something alarmed me and filled me with terror—something that made my flesh go rough and cold—oh, it was horrible!” she shuddered.
“I couldn’t endure it any longer, so I got out of bed and went out into the corridor to wake uncle. Just then I heard a sound outside my window, but I was just too terrified to look out. Then I heard a motor-car and footsteps on the path outside. I went to Sir John’s door and knocked, but got no answer. Then I tried Lady Maxell’s door, but there was no answer there either. So I went to Johnson’s room and woke him;” she looked at Timothy, “I—I—thought that you might be there, so I came back to the open window and looked.”
“Show me Sir John’s room,” said the policeman to the servant, and the three men passed up the stairs, followed by the girl.
The door which the man indicated was locked, and even when the policeman hammered on the panel there was no response.
“I think the key of my door will unlock almost any of the room doors,” said the girl suddenly. “Sir John told me once that all the room locks were made on the same plan.”
She went away and came back with a key. The policeman fitted it in the lock and opened the door, feeling for and finding the electric switch as he entered. The room was empty, and apparently the bed had not been occupied.
“Where does that door lead?” he asked.
“That leads to Lady Maxell’s room,” said the girl; “there is a key on this side.”
This door he found was open and again they found an empty room and a bed which had not been slept in. They looked at one another.
“Wouldn’t Sir John be in his study till late?” asked Timothy.
The girl nodded.
“It is at the end of the corridor,” she said in a broken voice, for she felt that the study held some dreadful secret.
This door was locked too, locked from the inside. By now the policeman was standing on no ceremony, and with a quick thrust of his shoulder he broke the lock, and the door flew open.
“Let us have a little light,” he said, unconsciously copying words which had been spoken in that room an hour before.
The room was empty, but here at any rate was evidence. The safe stood open, the fireplace was filled with glowing ashes, and the air of the room was pungent with the scent of burnt paper.
“What is this?” asked Timothy, pointing to the ground.
The floor of the study was covered with a thick, biscuit-coloured carpet, and “this” was a round, dark stain which was still wet. The policeman went on his knees and examined it.
“It is blood,” he said briefly; “there’s another patch near the door. Where does this door lead? Catch that girl, she’s fainting!”
Timothy was just in time to slip his arm round Mary’s waist before she collapsed. By this time the household was aroused, and a woman servant was on the spot to take charge of Mary. When Timothy had rejoined the policeman, that officer had discovered where the door led.
“You go down a stairway into the garden,” he said. “It looks as if two shots were fired here. Look, there’s the mark of both of them on the wall.”
“Do you suggest that two people have been killed?”
The policeman nodded.
“One was shot in the middle of the room, and one was probably shot on the way to the door. What do you make of this?” and he held up a bag, discoloured and weather-worn, with a handle to which was fastened a long length of rusty wire.
“It is empty,” said the officer, examining the contents of the little grip which, up till an hour before, had held John Maxell’s most jealously guarded secrets.
“I’ll use this ’phone,” said the officer. “You’d better stay by, Mr. Anderson. We shall want your evidence—it will be important. It isn’t often we have a man watching outside a house where a murder is committed—probably two.”
The sun had risen before the preliminary interrogation and the search of the house and grounds had been concluded. Blewitt the detective, who had taken charge of the case, came into the dining-room, where a worried servant was serving coffee for the investigators, and dropped down on to a chair.
“There’s one clue and there’s one clue alone,” he said, and drew from his pocket a soft hat. “Do you recognise this, Anderson?”
Timothy nodded.
“Yes,” he said, “that was worn last night by the man I spoke to you about.”
“Cartwright?” said the detective.
“I could swear to it,” said Timothy. “Where did you find it?”
“Outside,” said the detective; “and that is all we have to go on. There is no sign of any body. My first theory stands.”
“You believe that the murderer carried Sir John and Lady Maxell into the car and drove away with them?” said Timothy; “but that pre-supposes that the chauffeur was in the plot.”
“He may have been and he may have been terrorised,” said the detective. “Even a taxi-driver will be obliging if you stick a gun in his stomach.”
“But wouldn’t Miss Maxell have heard——” began Timothy.
“Miss Maxell heard,” said the detective, “but was afraid to look out. She also heard two shots. My theory is that Sir John and Lady Maxell were killed, that the murderer first locked both the bedrooms, went through Sir John’s papers, presumably to discover something incriminating himself, and to destroy such documents.”
“But why not leave the bodies?” said Timothy.
“Because without the bodies no indictment of murder could hold against him.”
Timothy Anderson turned as the girl came in. She was looking very tired, but she was calmer than she had been earlier in the morning.
“Is there any news?” she asked, and Timothy shook his head.
“We have searched every inch of the ground,” he said.
“Do you think——” She hesitated to ask the question.
“I am afraid,” replied Timothy gently, “that there is very little hope.”
“But have you searched everywhere?” insisted the girl.
“Everywhere,” replied Timothy.
Soon after, Timothy took the girl away to an hotel for breakfast and to arrange for a room, and the house was left in charge of the police. Later came the famous detective Gilborne, who made an independent search, but he, like his predecessors, failed to discover any further evidence, because he also knew nothing of the disused well, which lay hidden under a rubbish heap.