“Devotedly yours,Charley Wright.”
It was this photograph that had caught Dunn's eyes. Both it and the writing and the signature he recognized, and his look was very stern, his eyes as cold as death itself, as slowly, slowly he pushed back the door of the room another inch or so.
The girl stirred. It was as though some knowledge of the slow opening of the door had penetrated to her consciousness before as yet she actually saw or heard anything.
She rose to her feet, drying her eyes with her handkerchief, and as she was moving to a drawer near to get a clean one her glance fell on the partially-open door.
“I thought I shut it,” she said aloud in a puzzled manner.
She crossed the floor to the door and closed it with a push from her hand and in the passage outside Dunn stood still, not certain what to do next.
But for that photograph he might have gone quietly away, giving up the reckless plan that had formed itself so suddenly in his mind while he watched the burglar at work.
That photograph, however, with its suggestion that he stood indeed on the brink of the solution of the mystery, seemed a summons to him to go on. It was as though a voice from the dead called him to continue on his task to punish and to save, and slowly, very slowly, with an infinite caution, he turned again the handle of the door and still very slowly, still with the same infinite caution, he pushed back the door the merest fraction of an inch at a time so that not even one watching could have said that it moved.
When he had it once more so far open that he could see within, he bent forward to look. The girl was beginning her preparations for the night now. She had assumed a long, comfortable-looking dressing-gown and, standing in front of the mirror, she had just finished brushing her hair and was beginning to fasten it up in a long plait. He could see her face in the mirror; her deep, sad eyes, swollen with crying, her cheeks still tear-stained, her mouth yet quivering with barely-repressed emotion.
He was still watching her when, as if growing uneasy, she turned her head and glanced over her shoulder, and though he moved back so quickly that she did not catch sight of him, she saw that the door was open once more.
“What can be the matter with the door?” she exclaimed aloud, and she crossed the room towards it with a quick and somewhat impatient movement.
But this time, instead of closing it, she pulled it open and found herself face to face with Dunn.
He did not speak or move, and she stood staring at him blankly. Slowly her mouth opened as though to utter a cry that, however, could not rise above her fluttering throat. Her face had taken on the pallor of death, her great eyes showed the awful fear she felt.
Still without speaking, Dunn stepped forward into the room and, closing the door, stood with his back to it.
She shrank away and put her hand upon a chair, but for the support of which she must certainly have fallen, for her limbs were trembling so violently they gave her little support.
“Don't hurt me,” she panted.
In truth he presented a strange and terrifying appearance. The unkempt hair that covered his face and through which his keen eyes glowed like fire, gave him an unusual and formidable aspect. In one hand he held the ugly-looking jemmy he had taken from the burglar, and the new clothes he had donned, ill-fitting and soiled, served to accentuate the ungainliness of his form.
The frightened girl was not even sure that he was human, and she shrank yet further away from him till she sank down upon the bed, dizzy with fear and almost swooning.
As yet he had not spoken, for his eyes had gone to the mantlepiece on which he saw that the photograph signed with the name “Charley Wright,” did not now stand upright, but had fallen forward on its face so that one could no longer see what it represented.
It must have fallen just as he entered the room and this seemed to him an omen, though whether of good or ill, he did not know.
“Who are you?” the girl stammered. “What do you want?”
He looked at her moodily and still without answering, though in his bright and keen eyes a strange light burned.
She was lovely, he thought, of that there could be no question. But her beauty made to him small appeal, for he was wondering what kind of soul lay behind those perfect features, that smooth and delicate skin, those luminous eyes. Yet his eyes were still hard and it was in his roughest, gruffest tones that he said:
“You needn't be afraid, I won't hurt you.”
“I'll give you everything I have,” she panted, “if only you'll go away.”
“Not so fast as all that,” he answered, coolly, for indeed he had not taken so mad a risk in order to go away again if he could help it. “Who is there in the house besides you?”
“Only mother,” she answered, looking up at him very pleadingly as if in hopes that he must relent when he saw her in distress. “Please, won't you take what you want and go away? Please don't disturb mother, it would nearly kill her.”
“I'm not going to hurt either you or your mother if you'll be sensible,” he said irritably, for, unreasonably enough, the extreme fear she showed and her pleading tones annoyed him. He had a feeling that he would like to shake her, it was so absurd of her to look at him as though she expected him to gobble her up in a mouthful.
She seemed a little reassured.
“Mother will be so dreadfully frightened,” she repeated, “I'll give you everything there is in the house if only you'll go at once.”
“I can take everything I want without your giving it me,” he retorted. “How do I know you're telling the truth when you say there's no one else in the house? How many servants have you?”
“None,” she answered. “There's a woman comes every day, but she doesn't sleep here.”
“Do you live all alone here with your mother?” he asked, watching her keenly.
“There's my stepfather,” she answered. “But he's not here tonight.”
“Oh, is he away?” Dunn asked, his expression almost one of disappointment.
The girl, whose first extreme fear had passed and who was watching him as keenly as he watched her, noticed this manner of disappointment, and could not help wondering what sort of burglar it was who was not pleased to hear that the man of the house was away, and that he had only two women to deal with.
And it appeared to her that he seemed not only disappointed, but rather at a loss what to do next.
As in truth he was, for that the stepfather should be away, and this girl and her mother all alone, was, perhaps, the one possibility that he had never considered.
She noticed, too, that he did not pay any attention to her jewellery, which was lying close to his hand on the toilet-table, and though in point of actual fact this jewellery was not of any great value, it was exceedingly precious in her eyes, and she did not understand a burglar who showed no eagerness to seize on it.
“Did you want to see Mr. Dawson?” she asked, her voice more confident now and even with a questioning note in it.
“Mr. Dawson! Who's he?” Dunn asked, disconcerted by the question, but not wishing to seem so.
“My stepfather, Mr. Deede Dawson,” she answered. “I think you knew that. If you want him, he went to London early today, but I think it's quite likely he may come back tonight.”
“What should I want him for?” growled Dunn, more and more disconcerted, as he saw that he was not playing his part too well.
“I don't know,” she answered. “I suppose you do.”
“You suppose a lot,” he retorted roughly. “Now you listen to me. I don't want to hurt you, but I don't mean to be interfered with. I'm going over the house to see what I can find that's worth taking. Understand?”
“Oh, perfectly,” she said.
She was watching him closely, and she noticed that he still made no attempt to take possession of her jewellery, though it lay at his hand, and that puzzled her very much, indeed, for she supposed the very first thing a burglar did was always to seize such treasures as these of hers. But this man paid them no attention whatever, and did not even notice them.
He was feeling in his pockets now and he took out the revolver and the coil of thin rope he had secured from the burglar.
“Now, do you know what I'm going to do?” he asked, with an air of roughness and brutality that was a little overdone. He put the revolver and the rope down on the bed, the revolver quite close to her.
“I'm going,” he continued, “to tie you up to one of those chairs. I can't risk your playing any tricks or giving an alarm, perhaps, while I'm searching the house. I shall take what's worth having, and then I shall clear off, and if your stepfather's coming home tonight you won't have to wait long till he releases you, and if he don't come I can't help it.”
He turned his back to her as he spoke and took hold of one of the chairs in the room, and then of another and looked at them as though carefully considering which would be the best to use for the carrying out of his threat.
He appeared to find it difficult to decide, for he kept his back turned to her for two or three minutes, during all of which time the revolver lay on the bed quite close to her hand.
He listened intently for he fully expected her to snatch it up, and he wished to be ready to turn before she could actually fire. But, indeed, nothing was further from her thoughts, for she did not know in the least how to use the weapon or even how to fire it off, and the very thought of employing it to kill any one would have terrified her far more even than had done her experiences of this night.
So the pistol lay untouched by her side, while, very pale and trembling a little, she waited what he would do, and on his side he felt as much puzzled by her failure to use the opportunity he had put in her way as she was puzzled by his neglect to seize her jewellery lying ready to his hand.
He was still hesitating, still appearing unable to decide which chair to employ in carrying out his proclaimed purpose of fastening her up when she asked a question that made him swing round upon her very quickly and with a very startled look.
“Are you a real burglar?” she said.
“What do you mean?” Dunn asked quickly. The matted growth of hair on his face served well to hide any change of expression, but his eyes betrayed him with their look of surprise and discomfiture, and in her own clear and steady glance appeared now a kind of puzzled mockery as if she understood well that all he did was done for some purpose, though what that purpose was still perplexed her.
“I mean,” she said slowly, “well—what do I mean? I am only asking a question. Are you a burglar—or have you come here for some other reason?”
“I don't know what you're getting at,” he grumbled. “Think I'm here for fun? Not me. Come and sit on this chair and put your hands behind you and don't make a noise, or scream, or anything, not if you value your life.”
“I don't know that I do very much,” she answered with a manner of extreme bitterness, but more as if speaking to herself than to him.
She did as he ordered, and he proceeded to tie her wrists together and to fasten them to the back of the chair on which she had seated herself. He was careful not to draw the cords too tight, but at the same time he made the fastening secure.
“You won't disturb mother, will you?” she asked quietly when he had finished. “Her room's the one at the end of the passage.”
“I don't want to disturb any one,” he answered. “I only want to get off quietly. I won't gag you, but don't you try to make any noise, if you do I'll come back. Understand?”
“Oh, perfectly,” she answered. “May I ask one question? Do you feel very proud of yourself just now?”
He did not answer, but went out of the room quickly, and he had an impression that she smiled as she watched him go, and that her smile was bitter and a little contemptuous.
“What a girl,” he muttered. “She scored every time. I didn't find out a thing, she didn't do anything I expected or wanted her to. She seemed as if she spotted me right off—I wonder if she did? I wonder if she could be trusted?”
But then he thought of that photograph on the mantelpiece and his look grew stern and hard again. He was careful to avoid the room the girl had indicated as occupied by her mother, but of all the others on that floor he made a hasty search without discovering anything to interest him or anything of the least importance or at all unusual.
From the wide landing in the centre of the house a narrow stairway, hidden away behind an angle of the wall so that one did not notice it at first, led above to three large attics with steeply-sloping roofs and evidently designed more for storage purposes than for habitation.
The doors of two of these were open and within was merely a collection of such lumber as soon accumulates in any house.
The door of the third attic was locked, but by aid of the jemmy he still carried, he forced it open without difficulty.
Within was nothing but a square packing-case, standing in the middle of the floor. Otherwise the light of the electric torch he flashed around showed only the bare boarding of the floor and the bare plastered walls.
Near the packing-case a hammer and some nails lay on the floor and the lid was in position but was not fastened, as though some interruption had occurred before the task of nailing it down could be completed.
Dunn noted that one nail had been driven home, and he was on the point of leaving the attic, for he knew he had not much time and hoped that downstairs he would be able to make some discoveries of importance, when it occurred to him that it might be wise to see what was in this case, the nailing down the lid of which had not been completed.
He crossed the room to it, and without drawing the one nail, pushed back the lid which pivoted on it quite easily.
Within appeared a covering of coarse sacking. He pulled this away with a careless hand, and beneath the beam of his electric torch showed the pale and dreadful features of a dead man—of a man, the center of whose forehead showed the small round hole where a bullet had entered in; of a man whose still-recognizable features were those of the photograph on the mantel-piece of the room downstairs, the photograph that was signed:
“Devotedly yours,Charley Wright.”
For a long time Robert Dunn stood, looking down in silence at that dead face which was hardly more still, more rigid than his own.
He shivered, for he felt very cold. It was as though the coldness of the death in whose presence he stood had laid its chilly hand on him also.
At last he stirred and looked about him with a bewildered air, then carefully and with a reverent hand, he put back the sackcloth covering.
“So I've found you, Charley,” he whispered. “Found you at last.”
He replaced the lid, leaving everything as it had been when he entered the attic, and stood for a time, trying to collect his thoughts which the shock of this dreadful discovery had so disordered, and to decide what to do next.
“But, then, that's simple,” he thought. “I must go straight to the police and bring them here. They said they wanted proof; they said I had nothing to go on but bare suspicion. But that's evidence enough to hang Deede Dawson—the girl, too, perhaps.”
Then he wondered whether it could be that she knew nothing and was innocent of all part or share in this dreadful deed. But how could that be possible? How could it be that such a crime committed in the house in which she lived could remain unknown to her?
On the other hand, when he thought of her clear, candid eyes; when he remembered her gentle beauty, it did not seem conceivable that behind them could lie hidden the tigerish soul of a murderess.
“That's only sentiment, though,” he muttered. “Nothing more. Beautiful women have been rotten bad through and through before today. There's nothing for me to do but to go and inform the police, and get them here as soon as possible. If she's innocent, I suppose she'll be able to prove it.”
He hesitated a moment, as he thought of how he had left her, bound and a prisoner.
It seemed brutal to leave her like that while he was away, for he would probably be some time absent. But with a hard look, he told himself that whatever pain she suffered she must endure it.
His first and sole thought must be to bring to justice the murderers of his unfortunate friend; and to secure, too, thereby, the success almost certainly of his own mission.
To release her and leave her at liberty might endanger the attainment of both those ends, and so she must remain a prisoner.
“Only,” he muttered, “if she knew the attic almost over her head held such a secret, why, didn't she take the chance I gave her of getting hold of my revolver? That she didn't, looks as if she knew nothing.”
But then he thought again of the photograph in her room and remembered that agony of grief to which she had been surrendering herself when he first saw her. Now those passionate tears of hers seemed to him like remorse.
“I'll leave her where she is,” he decided again. “I can't help it; I mustn't run any risks. My first duty is to get the police here and have Deede Dawson arrested.”
He went down the stairs still deep in thought, and when he reached the landing below he would not even go to make sure that his captive was still secure.
An obscure feeling that he did not wish to see her, and still more that he did not wish her to see him, prevented him.
He descended the second flight of steps to the hall, taking fewer precautions to avoid making a noise and still very deep in thought.
For some time he had had but little hope that young Charley Wright still lived.
Nevertheless, the dreadful discovery he had made in the attic above had affected him profoundly, and left his mind in a chaos of emotions so that he was for the time much less acutely watchful than usual.
They had spent their boyhood together, and he remembered a thousand incidents of their childhood. They had been at school and college together. And how brilliantly Charley had always done at work and play, surmounting every difficulty with a laugh, as if it were merely some new and specially amusing jest!
Every one had thought well of him, every one had believed that his future career would be brilliant. Now it had ended in this obscure and dreadful fashion, as ends the life of a trapped rat.
Dunn found himself hardly able to realize that it was really so, and through all the confused medley of his thoughts there danced and flickered his memory of a young and lovely face, now tear-stained, now smiling, now pale with terror, now calmly disdainful.
“Can she have known?” he muttered. “She must have known—she can't have known—it's not possible either way.”
He shuddered and as he put his foot on the lowest stair he raised his hands to cover his face as though to shut out the visions that passed before him.
Another step forward he took in the darkness, and all at once there flashed upon him the light of a strong electric torch, suddenly switched on.
“Put up your hands,” said a voice sharply. “Or you're a dead man.”
He looked bewilderedly, taken altogether by surprise, and saw he was faced by a fat little man with a smooth, chubby, smiling face and eyes that were cold and grey and deadly, and who held in one hand a revolver levelled at his heart.
“Put up your hands,” this newcomer said again, his voice level and calm, his eyes intent and deadly. “Put up your hands or I fire.”
Dunn obeyed promptly.
There was that about this little fat, smiling man and his unsmiling eyes which proclaimed very plainly that he was quite ready to put his threat into execution.
For a moment or two they stood thus, each regarding the other very intently. Dunn, his hands in the air, the steady barrel of the other's pistol levelled at his heart, knew that never in all his adventurous life had he been in such deadly peril as now, and the grotesque thought came into his mind to wonder if there were room for two in that packing-case in the attic.
Or perhaps no attempt would be made to hide his death since, after all, it is always permissible to shoot an armed burglar.
The clock on the stairs began to strike the hour, and he wondered if he would still be alive when the last stroke sounded.
He did not much think so for he thought he could read a very deadly purpose in the other's cold grey eyes, nor did he suppose that a man with such a secret as that of the attic upstairs to hide was likely to stand on any scruple.
And he thought that if he still lived when the clock finished striking he would take it for an omen of good hope.
The last stroke sounded and died away into the silence of the night.
The revolver was still levelled at his heart, the grim purpose in the other's eyes had not changed, and yet Dunn drew a breath of deep relief as though the worst of the danger was past.
Through his mind, that had been a little dulled by the sudden consciousness of so extreme a peril, thought began again to race with more than normal rapidity and clearness.
It occurred to him, with a sense of the irony of the position, that when he entered this house it had been with the deliberate intention of getting himself discovered by the inmates, believing that to show himself to them in the character of a burglar might gain him their confidence.
It had seemed to him that so he might come to be accepted as one of them and perhaps learn in time the secret of their plans.
The danger that they might adopt the other course of handing him over to the police had not seemed to him very great, for he had his reasons for believing that there would be no great desire to draw the attention of the authorities to Bittermeads for any reason whatever.
But the discovery he had made in the attic changed all that. It changed his plans, for now he could go to the police immediately. And it changed also his conception of how these people were likely to act.
Before, it had not entered his mind to suppose that he ran any special risk of being shot at sight, but now he understood that the only thing standing between him and instant death was the faint doubt in his captor's mind as to how much he knew.
It seemed to him his only hope was to carry out his original plan and try to pass himself off as the sort of person who might be likely to be useful to the master of Bittermeads.
“Don't shoot, sir,” he said, in a kind of high whine. “I ain't done no harm, and it's a fair cop—and me not a month out of Dartmoor Gaol. I shall get a hot 'un for this, I know.”
The little fat man did not answer; his eyes were as deadly, the muzzle of his pistol as steady as before.
Dunn wondered if it were from that pistol had issued the bullet that had drilled so neat and round a hole in his friend's forehead. He supposed so.
He said again
“Don't shoot, Mr. Deede Dawson, sir; I ain't done no harm.”
“Oh, you know my name, do you, you scoundrel?” Deede Dawson said, a little surprised.
“Yes, sir,” Dunn answered. “We always find out as much as we can about a crib before we get to work.”
“I see,” said Mr. Dawson. “Very praiseworthy. Attention to business and all that. Pray, what did you find out about me?”
“Only as you was to be away tonight, sir,” answered Dunn. “And that there didn't seem to be any other man in the house, and, of course, how the house lay and the garden, and so. But I didn't know as you was coming home so soon.”
“No, I don't suppose you did,” said Deede Dawson.
“I ain't done no harm,” Dunn urged, making his voice as whining and pleading as he could. “I've only just been looking round the two top floors—I ain't touched a thing. Give a cove a chance, sir.”
“You've been looking round, have you?” said Deede Dawson slowly. “Did you find anything to interest you?”
“I've only been in the bedrooms and the attics,” answered Dunn, changing not a muscle of his countenance and thinking boldness his safest course, for he knew well the slightest sign or hint of knowledge that he gave would mean his death. “I'd only just come downstairs when you copped me, sir; I ain't touched a thing in one of these rooms down here.”
“Haven't you?” said Deede Dawson slowly, and his face was paler, his eyes more deadly, the muzzle of his pistol yet more inflexibly steady than before.
More clearly still did Dunn realize that the faintest breath of suspicion stirring in the other's mind that he knew of what was hidden in the attic would mean certain death and just such another neat little hole bored through heart or brain as that he had seen showing in the forehead of his dead friend.
“Haven't you, though?” Deede Dawson repeated. “The bedrooms—the attics—that's all?”
“Yes, sir, that's all, take my oath that's all,” Dunn repeated earnestly, as if he wished very much to impress on his captor that he had searched bedrooms and attics thoroughly, but not these downstairs rooms.
Deede Dawson was plainly puzzled, and for the first time a little doubt seemed to show in his hard grey eyes.
Dunn perceived that a need was on him to know for certain whether his dreadful secret had been discovered or not.
Until he had assured himself on that point Dunn felt comparatively safe, but he still knew also that to allow the faintest suspicion to dawn in Deede Dawson's mind would mean for him instant death.
He saw, too, watching very warily and ready to take advantage of any momentary slip or forgetfulness, how steady was Deede Dawson's hand, how firm and watchful his eyes.
With many men, with most men indeed, Dunn would have seized or made some opportunity to dash in and attack, taking the chance of being shot down first, since there are few indeed really skilled in the use of a revolver, the most tricky if the most deadly of weapons.
But he realized he had small hope of taking unawares this fat little smiling man with the unsmiling eyes and steady hand, and he was well convinced that the first doubtful movement he made would bring a bullet crashing through his brain.
His only hope was in delay and in diverting suspicion, and Deede Dawson's voice was very soft and deadly as he said:
“So you've been looking in the bedrooms, have you? What did you find there?”
“Nothing, sir, not a thing,” protested Dunn. “I didn't touch a thing, I only wanted to look round before coming down here to see about the silver.”
“And the attics?” asked Deede Dawson. “What did you find there?”
“There wasn't no one in them,” Dunn answered. “I only wanted to make sure the young lady was telling the truth about there being no servants in the house to sleep.”
“Did you look in all the attics, then?” asked Deede Dawson.
“Yes,” answered Dunn. “'There was one as was locked, but I tooked the liberty of forcing it just to make sure. I ain't done no harm to speak of.”
“You found one locked, eh?” said Deede Dawson, and his smile grew still more pleasant and more friendly. “That must have surprised you a good deal, didn't it?”
“I thought as perhaps there was some one waiting already to give the alarm,” answered Dunn. “I didn't mind the old lady, but I couldn't risk there being some one hiding there, so I had to look, but I ain't done no damage to speak of, I could put it right for you myself in half-an-hour, sir, if you'll let me.”
“Could you, indeed?” said Deede Dawson. “Well, and did you find any one sleeping there?”
But for that hairy disguise upon his cheeks and chin, Dunn would almost certainly have betrayed himself, so dreadful did the question seem to him, so poignant the double meaning that it bore, so clear his memory of his friend he had found there, sleeping indeed.
But there was nothing to show his inner agitation, as he said, shaking his head.
“There wasn't no one there, any more than in the other attics, nothing but an old packing-case.”
“And what?” said Deede Dawson, his voice so soft it was like a caress, his smile so sweet it was a veritable benediction. “What was in that packing-case?”
“Didn't look,” answered Dunn, and then, with a sudden change of manner, as though all at once understanding what previously had puzzled him. “Lum-me,” he cried, “is that where you keep the silver? Lor', and to think I never even troubled to look.”
“You never looked?” repeated Deede Dawson.
Dunn shook his head with an air of baffled regret. “Never thought of it,” he said. “I thought it was just lumber like in the other attics, and I might have got clear away with it if I had known, as easy as not.”
His chagrin was so apparent, his whole manner so innocent, that Deede Dawson began to believe he really did know nothing.
“Didn't you wonder why the door was locked?” he asked.
“Lor',” answered Dunn, “if you stopped to wonder about everything you find rummy in a crib you're cracking, when would you ever get your business done?”
“So you didn't look—in that packing-case?” Deede Dawson repeated.
“If I had,” answered Dunn ruefully, “I shouldn't be here, copped like this. I should have shoved with the stuff and not waited for nothing more. But I never had no luck.”
“I'm not so sure of that,” said Deede Dawson grimly, and as he spoke a soft voice called down from upstairs.
“Is there any one there?” it said. “Oh, please, is any one there?”
“Is that you, Ella?” Deede Dawson called back. “Come down here.”
“I can't,” she answered. “I'm fastened to a chair.”
“I didn't hurt the young lady,” Dunn interposed quickly. “I only tied her up as gentle as I could to a chair so as to stop her from interfering.”
“Oh, that's it, is it?” said Deede Dawson, and seemed a little amused, as though the thought of his stepdaughter's plight pleased him rather than not. “Well, if she can't come down here, we'll go up there. Turn round, my man, and go up the stairs and keep your hands over your head all the time. I shan't hesitate to shoot if you don't, and I never miss.”
Dunn was not inclined to value his life at a very high price as he turned and went awkwardly up the stairs, still holding his hands above his head.
But he meant to save it if he could, for many things depended on it, among them due punishment to be exacted for the crime he had discovered this night; and also, perhaps, for the humiliation he was now enduring.
Up the stairs, across the landing, and down the passage opposite Dunn went in silence, shepherded by the little man behind whose pistol was still levelled and still steady.
His hands held high in the air, he pushed open with his knee the door of the girl's room and entered, and she looked up as he did so with an expression of pure astonishment at his attitude of upheld hands that changed to one of comprehension and of faint amusement as Deede Dawson followed, revolver in hand.
“Oh,” she murmured. “Captivity captive, it seems.”
At the fireplace Dunn turned and found her looking at him very intently, while from the doorway Deede Dawson surveyed them both, for once his eyes appearing to share in the smile that played about his lips as though he found much satisfaction in what he saw.
“Well, Ella,” he said. “You've been having adventures, it seems, but you don't look too comfortable like that.”
“Nor do I feel it,” she retorted. “So please set me free.”
“Yes, so I will,” he answered, but he still hesitated, and Dunn had the idea that he was pleased to see the girl like this, and would leave her so if he could, and that he was wondering now if he could turn her predicament to his own advantage in any way.
“Yes, I will,” he said again. “Your mother—?”
“She hasn't wakened,” Ella answered. “I don't think she has heard anything. I don't suppose she will, for she took two of those pills last night that Dr. Rawson gave her for when she couldn't sleep.”
“It's just as well she did,” said Deede Dawson.
“Yes, but please undo my hands,” she asked him. “The cords are cutting my wrists dreadfully.”
As she spoke she glanced at Dunn, standing by the fireplace and listening gravely to what they said, and Deede Dawson exclaimed with an air of great indignation:—
“The fellow deserves to be well thrashed for treating you like that. I've a good mind to do it, too, before handing him over to the police.”
“But you haven't released me yet,” she remarked.
“Oh, yes, yes,” he said, starting as if this were quite a new idea. “I'll release you at once—but I must watch this scoundrel. He must have frightened you dreadfully.”
“Indeed he did not,” she answered quickly, again looking at Dunn. “No, he didn't,” she said again with a touch of defiance in her manner and a certain slightly lifting her small, round chin. “At least not much after just at first,” she added.
“I'll loose you,” Deede Dawson said once more, and coming up to her, he began to fumble in a feeble, ineffectual way at the cords that secured her wrists.
“Jove, he's tied you up pretty tight, Ella!” he said.
“He believes in doing his work thoroughly, I suppose,” she remarked, lifting her eyes to Dunn's with a look in them that was partly questioning and partly puzzled and wholly elusive. “I daresay he always likes to do everything thoroughly.”
“Seems so,” said Deede Dawson, giving up his fumbling and ineffectual efforts to release her.
He stepped back and stood behind her chair, looking from her to Dunn and back again, and once more Dunn was conscious of an impression that he wished to make use for his own purposes of the girl's position, but that he did not know how to do so.
“You are a nice scoundrel,” said Deede Dawson suddenly, with an indignation that seemed to Dunn largely assumed. “Treating a girl like this. Ella, what would you like done to him? He deserves shooting. Shall I put a bullet through him for you?”
“He might have treated me worse, I suppose,” said Ella quietly. “And if you would be less indignant with him, you might be more help to me. There are scissors on the table somewhere.”
“I'll get them,” Deede Dawson said. “I'll get them,” he repeated, as though now at last finally making up his mind.
He took the scissors from the toilet-table where they lay before the looking-glass and cut the cords by which Ella was secured.
With a sigh of relief she straightened herself from the confined position in which she had been held and began to rub her wrists, which were slightly inflamed where the cords had bruised her soft skin.
“Like to tie him up that way now?” asked Deede Dawson. “You shall if you like.”
She turned and looked full at Dunn and he looked back at her with eyes as steady and as calm as her own.
Again she showed that faint doubt and wonder which had flickered through her level gaze before as though she felt that there was more in all this than was apparent, and did not wish to condemn him utterly without a hearing.
But it was plain also that she did not wish to say too much before her stepfather and she answered carelessly:
“I don't think I could tie him tight enough, besides, he looks ridiculous enough like that with his hands up in the air.”
It was her revenge for what he had made her suffer. He felt himself flush and he knew that she knew that her little barbed shaft had struck home.
“Well, go and look through his pockets,” Deede Dawson said. “And see if he's got a revolver. Don't be frightened; if he lowers his hands he'll be a dead man before he knows it.”
“He has a pistol,” she said. “He showed it me, it's in his coat pocket.”
“Better get it then,” Deede Dawson told her. She obeyed and brought him the weapon, and he nodded with satisfaction as he put it in his own pocket.
“I think we might let you put your hands down now,” he remarked, and Dunn gladly availed himself of the permission, for every muscle in his arms was aching badly.
He remained standing by the wall while Deede Dawson, seating himself on the chair to which Ella had been bound, rested his chin on his left hand and, with the pistol still ready in his right, regarded Dunn with a steady questioning gaze.
Ella was standing near the bed. She had poured a few drops of eau-de-Cologne on her wrists and was rubbing them softly, and for ever after the poignant pleasant odour of the scent has remained associated in Robert Dunn's mind with the strange events of that night so that always even the merest whiff of it conjures up before his mind a picture of that room with himself silent by the fireplace and Ella silent by the bed and Deede Dawson, pistol in hand, seated between them, as silent also as they, and very watchful.
Ella appeared fully taken up with her occupation and might almost have forgotten the presence of the two men. She did not look at either of them, but continued to rub and chafe her wrists softly.
Deede Dawson had forgotten for once to smile, his brow was slightly wrinkled, his cold grey eyes intent and watchful, and Dunn felt very sure that he was thinking out some plan or scheme.
The hope came to him that Deede Dawson was thinking he might prove of use, and that was the thought which, above all others, he wished the other to have. It was, indeed, that thought which all his recent actions had been aimed to implant in Deede Dawson's mind till his dreadful discovery in the attic had seemed to make at last direct action possible. How, in his present plight that thought, if Deede Dawson should come to entertain it, might yet prove his salvation. Now and again Deede Dawson gave him quick, searching glances, but when at last he spoke it was Ella he addressed.
“Wrists hurt you much?” he asked.
“Not so much now,” she answered. “They were beginning to hurt a great deal, though.”
“Were they, though?” said Deede Dawson. “And to think you might have been like that for hours if I hadn't chanced to come home. Too bad, what a brute this fellow is.”
“Men mostly are, I think,” she observed indifferently.
“And women mostly like to get their own back again,” he remarked with a chuckle, and then turned sharply to Dunn. “Well, my man,” he asked, “what have you got to say for yourself?”
“Nothing,” Dunn answered. “It was a fair cop.”
“You've had a taste of penal servitude before, I suppose?” Deede Dawson asked.
“Maybe,” Dunn answered, as if not wishing to betray himself. “Maybe not.”
“Well, I think I remember you said something about not being long out of Dartmoor,” remarked Deede Dawson. “How do you relish the prospect of going back there?”
“I wonder,” interposed Ella thoughtfully. “I wonder what it is in you that makes you so love to be cruel, father?”
“Eh what?” he exclaimed, quite surprised. “Who's being cruel?”
“You,” she answered. “You enjoy keeping him wondering what you are going to do with him, just as you enjoyed seeing me tied to that chair and would have liked to leave me there.”
“My dear Ella!” he protested. “My dear child!”
“Oh, I know,” she said wearily. “Why don't you hand the man over to the police if you're going to, or let him go at once if you mean to do that?”
“Let him go, indeed!” exclaimed Deede Dawson. “What an idea! What should I do that for?”
“If you'll give me another chance,” said Dunn quickly, “I'll do anything—I should get it pretty stiff for this lot, and that wouldn't be any use to you, sir, would it? I can do almost anything—garden, drive a motor, do what I'm told, It's only because I've never had a chance I've had to take to this line.”
“If you could do what you're told you certainly might be useful,” said Deede Dawson slowly. “And I don't know that it would do me any good to send you off to prison—you deserve it, of course. Still—you talk sometimes like an educated man?”
“I had a bit of education,” Dunn answered.
“I see,” said Deede Dawson. “Well, I won't ask you any more questions, you'd probably only lie. What's your name?”
With that sudden recklessness which was a part of his impulsive and passionate nature, Dunn answered:
“Charley Wright.”
The effect was instantaneous and apparent on both his auditors.
Ella gave a little cry and started so violently that she dropped the bottle of eau-de-Cologne she had in her hands.
Deede Dawson jumped to his feet with a fearful oath. His face went livid, his fat cheeks seemed suddenly to sag, of his perpetual smile every trace vanished.
He swung his revolver up, and Dunn saw the crooked forefinger quiver as though in the very act of pressing the trigger.
The pressure of a hair decided, indeed, whether the weapon was to fire or not, as in a high-pitched, stammering voice, Deede Dawson gasped:
“What—what do you mean? What do you mean by that?”
“I only told you my name,” Dunn answered. “What's wrong with it?”
Doubtful and afraid, Deede Dawson stood hesitant. His forehead had become very damp, and he wiped it with a nervous gesture.
“Is that your name—your real name?” he muttered.
“Never had another that I know of,” Dunn answered.
Deede Dawson sat down again on the chair. He was still plainly very disturbed and shaken, and Ella seemed scarcely less agitated, though Dunn, watching them both very keenly, noticed that she was now looking at Deede Dawson with a somewhat strange expression and with an air as though his extreme excitement puzzled her and made her—afraid.
“Nothing wrong with the name, is there?” Dunn muttered again.
“No, no,” Deede Dawson answered. “No. It's merely a coincidence, that's all. A coincidence, I suppose, Ella?”
Ella did not answer. Her expression was very troubled and full of doubt as she stood looking from her stepfather to Dunn and back again.
“It's only that your name happens to be the same as that of a friend of ours—a great friend of my daughter's,” Deede Dawson said as though he felt obliged to offer some explanation. “That's all—a coincidence. It startled me for the moment.” He laughed. “That's all. Well, my man, it happens there is something I can make you useful in. If you do prove useful and do what I tell you, perhaps you may get let off. I might even keep you on in a job. I won't say I will, but I might. You look a likely sort of fellow for work, and I daresay you aren't any more dishonest than most people. Funny how things happen—quite a coincidence, your name. Well, come on; it's that packing-case you saw in the attic upstairs. I want you to help me downstairs with that—Charley Wright.”