"Inspector Wallace will take charge."
"Inspector Wallace will take charge."
Harding whistled. Wallace was the senior inspector of the service, and his special faculty was the unravelling of tangled accounts and the detection of defaulting managers and cashiers. Leaving the ordinary inspection of branches to his juniors, Wallace only journeyed from the head office to take charge when grave suspicions were entertained as to the integrity of a branch staff. The telegram was tantamount to an intimation that the authorities of the bank did not regard the robbery as the work of an outsider.
As he re-entered the office, Brennan was standing at the entrance with Johnson.
"No answer," Harding said quietly, and Johnson nodded and went off. Brennan turned and crossed to the counter.
"Is Mr. Eustace about?" he asked.
"He is talking to Mrs. Burke in the dining-room. She's rather excited, and he took her in there because she would shout so. He'll be back in a few minutes, unless you want to tell him something particularly at once," Harding answered.
Brennan glanced at a telegram he held in his hand.
"It will do when he comes out," he answered slowly. "Have you had any word?" he added, as he leant over the counter.
"The head office wires that Inspector Wallace—our bank inspector, that is, not one of your police inspectors—is coming up."
"Is that all?"
Harding gave a short laugh.
"All? It's quite enough, Brennan. Between you and me it means that Eustace and I are suspected—one of us or both."
"Yes, that's right," Brennan said quietly. "One or both."
As he spoke he held out a message for Harding to read.
"Keep manager under close surveillance till I arrive."Durham."
"Keep manager under close surveillance till I arrive.
"Durham."
"You know who Durham is?" Brennan asked.
"Never heard of him," Harding answered.
"He's the finest man who ever put on a uniform," Brennan exclaimed. "He is the sub-inspector in charge of this district—he's only been appointed a couple of months. I reckon it's only a temporary thing for him, just until there's room to make him an inspector. It's a good thing for your bank he is coming up. If anyone on earth can unravel a mystery, my sub-inspector is the man. He won't be long before he has the matter cleared up."
"If he can get to the bottom of this business, I'll agree with you," Harding replied. "But I don't think very much of his first idea; I don't think he is right if he suspects Eustace. When do you expect him?"
"I should say he will be here some time during the day. He wired from Wyalla, and I expect he'll ride across country—it will be quicker than waiting for a train at the junction. Ah, there's Mr. Gale back," he exclaimed, as a buggy drove past the bank. "If you'll let me know when Mr. Eustace is free, I'll just step out and hear what he has discovered about the yarn the men told us."
"All right. I'll call you as soon as Eustace comes in," Harding said, and Brennan left the office.
Soon after he had gone Harding heard the dining-room door open and Mrs. Burke's voice ring through the house.
"I don't believe a word of it. It's false; it's untrue. It's all a blind. I'll see whether there is not justice in the land for an unfortunate widow robbed of her all."
Then the door was slammed and the front door opened and slammed also.
Harding sat waiting for Eustace to come back to the office. He heard Mrs. Burke's voice sounding shrill outside, but not clear enough for him to distinguish what she was saying. Then the buggy started and drove rapidly away.
A gentle tap came at the door leading to the house, and Mrs. Eustace opened it and looked in.
"Has that dreadful woman gone?" she asked in an agitated voice. "Is Charlie here?"
Harding rose and went over to her.
"No. He has not come back yet. He is inthe dining-room. Shall I tell him you want him?"
"Oh, no, perhaps it will be better to leave him alone till he comes out. Did you hear what she said? She has been making such a scene in there. Poor Charlie, as if he had not enough to worry him as it is, without her saying such terrible things."
Brennan, with Gale and Johnson, appeared at the entrance, and Mrs. Eustace went back into the house, closing the door after her.
"Mrs. Burke has gone," Brennan said, as he came over to the counter. "Is Mr. Eustace in the office?"
"He has not come out of the dining-room yet. Shall I tell him?" Harding replied.
"I'll go through," Brennan said.
Harding opened the door and stood holding it, with Gale and Johnson behind him, as Brennan went to the dining-room door and knocked.
Receiving no answer, he opened the door.
"There is no one in there," he called out.
With one accord the three moved forward. Brennan was half-way across the room when they reached the door. He went to the window and looked at the fastening.
"He did not get out this way," he cried. "He must be in the house somewhere."
Mrs. Eustace appeared on the stairs, and came down.
"Where is your husband, Mrs. Eustace?" Brennan exclaimed directly he saw her.
"He was in there—isn't he in there now?" she said, as she passed into the room.
"He is not here, Mrs. Eustace, though Mrs. Burke left him here when she came out a few minutes ago. Where is he?"
With widely open eyes Mrs. Eustace stared from one to the other.
"Oh, what is it?" she cried. "What is it? Tell me—is it——"
For a moment she stood with her eyes fixed on Brennan.
"Oh, my God!" she cried as she flung up her arms and fell headlong to the floor.
Eustace had disappeared as completely and mysteriously as the gold which had been in his keeping.
Every corner of the building from the roof to the basement was examined. Even the cupboards were inspected and the made-up beds pulled to pieces, lest he should have succeeded in secreting himself amongst the jam-pots or inside the covering of a pillow; but no trace of him could be found.
His hats hung on their accustomed pegs, so that if he had gone from the house he must have gone bareheaded. But the question which none could answer was how he had managed to go from the house at all.
At the time Mrs. Burke left the dining-room, Brennan was standing talking to Gale and Johnson in front of the private entrance. In the office Harding was waiting for his manager to come from the house. Thus two out of the three ordinary means of exit could not have been used without Eustace being seen. The third was the back door opening from the scullery, which, in turn, opened from the kitchen. Bessie was in the kitchen when the slamming of the dining-room door announced the departure of Mrs. Burke.
Both she and her mistress were insistent thatEustace did not pass through the kitchen. Each told the same story when interrogated. As soon as the signal of Mrs. Burke's departure was heard, Mrs. Eustace went to the door leading from the kitchen to the passage and stood waiting for her husband to appear. When he did not do so, she went to the door of the office, knocked, and asked Harding if Eustace were there. She maintained that the door of the dining-room had not been opened after Mrs. Burke flounced out. Harding, who was listening in the office, also maintained it had not been opened.
The mystery of Eustace's disappearance was still agitating everyone when Sub-Inspector Durham rode up to the bank. Listening, without comment, to all Brennan had to report, he went through the premises with Harding and Brennan, saying nothing till he came to the back door.
Situated as it was, with only the bush behind and beyond it, the bank was thus free from being overlooked. A block of ground at the back was surrounded by a three-rail fence, but the cultivation was limited, a score of fowls occupying the far end and the remainder of the area consisting of a grass patch and a few indigenous shrubs left when the ground was fenced in from the bush.
Standing there, he waved his arm comprehensively towards the unoccupied land at the side and back of the building.
"Once outside, who was to see him clamber over that fence and make for the shelter of the bush?" he asked. "While you were loitering at the frontdoor, Brennan, your man was walking out at the back."
Brennan gnawed his moustache in chagrin.
"But—how did he get out of the dining-room?" Harding exclaimed.
Durham turned slowly and looked steadily into Harding's eyes.
"He walked out, Mr. Harding, walked out through the door."
"The door was shut."
"When you saw it. It was probably closed as noiselessly as it was opened—his wife saw to that. Then, as soon as he had slipped out this way, she came to your office and threw dust in your eyes by asking where her husband was. Just the sort of thing a woman would do. What did he do with his keys—the bank keys, I mean?"
"He had them with him."
"Oh, no, Mr. Harding. They would be no further use to him. He must have left them behind him. We shall find them somewhere. Let me have a look at the safes which were robbed."
"Shall I send off a description of the man to the police in the neighbourhood, sir?" Brennan asked.
"Did you not do so at once?" Durham asked, swinging round sharply.
"I was preparing it when you arrived, sir."
"We will look at the safes," Durham said.
Harding had pushed-to the doors of the big safe As he pulled them open Durham pointed.
"What keys are those?" he asked.
In the lock of the reserve recess the keys Eustacegave Harding in the morning were still hanging. Harding took them out.
"They are the manager's keys," he said. "In the excitement of the discovery that all the gold had gone, I must have forgotten to return them. I had no idea they were here when you asked me what Eustace had done with the keys. I entirely forgot them."
"But he did not, Mr. Harding. Do you know where he kept his private papers?"
"That was his private office," Harding replied, pointing to the little ante-room.
"When do you expect the relieving officer to arrive?"
"I can hardly say. He may come by train to the junction, in which case he should be here about noon to-morrow."
"Then you will be in charge until he arrives?"
"I have telegraphed to the head office reporting that Eustace has disappeared and asking for instructions. Until they come, of course, I am in charge."
"Then you will come with me while I examine his desk, though I do not suppose it contains anything but official papers—now. In the meantime, Brennan, send away your description to all the neighbouring police-stations and also to head-quarters for general distribution. When you have done that you can come back here. I shall be waiting for you."
He followed Harding into the little room.
"You had better go through the papers, Mr. Harding. They will probably all relate to the bank's business. I only want to see those which do not."
"It was in this drawer he kept his own papers,"Harding said, as he touched the knob of one of the side drawers.
"Is it locked?"
"No," Harding replied, as he pulled it out. "But it is empty," he added.
"Quite so," Durham replied in an unconcerned voice. "As I expected."
Harding stared at him in perplexity.
"But—but——" he stammered. "I don't understand it. I cannot—I cannot believe it of him."
Durham stood silent.
"Only a madman would have done such a thing, and Eustace is no more mad than I am," Harding added.
Still Durham said nothing.
"But if he had done such a thing, why did he remain here? Why not get away at the same time as he got the gold away? Surely——"
"Would you mind looking through the remainder of the drawers?" Durham interrupted.
Harding opened them one after the other, examined the papers they contained, and replaced them without making any further remark. The search was unavailing so far as private papers were concerned—all were connected with the bank. As Harding examined them, Durham stood beside the table without a word or a glance at the papers. When the last drawer had been opened, gone through, and closed, Harding turned to him.
"There is nothing here except what concerns the bank," he said.
"You are sure he kept all his own papers here?"
"Quite sure. The first drawer I opened was full of them yesterday. He had it out after the bank closed last night when I came in to give him the cash balance."
"I will see Mrs. Eustace," Durham said shortly. "In the interests of the bank I should like you to be present. Will you ask her to come in here?"
"Perhaps she would rather see you in the house."
"As she pleases—if you will ask her."
Harding found her sitting disconsolately in the dining-room and gave her Durham's message.
"Very well, I'll see him—here—if you stay."
She spoke without moving her eyes.
"I will be here," he said as he left the room to call Durham.
In the office he found a telegram had just arrived. It was an answer to his wire to the head office.
"Close office. Do all to assist the police. Wallace should arrive noon to-morrow."
"Close office. Do all to assist the police. Wallace should arrive noon to-morrow."
He handed the message to Durham, who just glanced at it.
"Is she coming in here or not?" Durham asked.
"She is in the dining-room, and will see you there," Harding answered.
Mrs. Eustace was standing staring out of the window when they entered the room.
"I can tell you nothing. I know nothing more than I have already said," she exclaimed as she turned to meet them.
"If you will kindly answer my questions I will be obliged," Durham replied. "Can you tell me where your husband kept his private papers?"
"Yes, in his office—that is, as a rule."
"And when he did not keep them there, where were they?"
"Oh, he always kept them there, but sometimes he had some in his pocket. Last night——"
"Yes? Last night——?" Durham said as she stopped.
"Oh, it's nothing. Merely that he had some papers in his pocket and discovered they were there when he was upstairs."
"Do you know what he did with them?"
"Of course I do. He left them on the dressing-table. They are there now."
"Will you show them to me?"
"Mr. Harding, will you take him upstairs? The papers are by the looking-glass."
Durham followed Harding upstairs without a word. On the dressing-table a small packet of folded documents was pushed half under the mirror. Durham picked them up and glanced at them.
"Thank you," he said. "Now we will go down again."
"These are the papers you referred to?" he asked, as soon as they were in the dining-room.
"Yes," Mrs. Eustace answered.
Durham laid them on the table in front of him.
"Can you tell me anything about your husband's private affairs?" he asked, looking steadily at her.
"I don't quite understand what you mean," she replied slowly.
"In regard to his mining speculations."
Harding saw the momentary start, quickly recovered, that she gave at the question.
"Do you know he speculated?"
She sat silent with averted face.
"Do you know he speculated both in shares and horse-racing?"
Still there was no reply, and Durham added, "Speculated and lost—heavily?"
"Not heavily," she exclaimed, flashing round upon him. "He did not lose heavily. He may have——"
She checked her words suddenly, closing her lips and turning her face away.
"Will you please finish your sentence, Mrs. Eustace?"
"He may have lost—sometimes; but he won as well. He had those shares—they may yet bring him in a fortune," she said, pointing to the papers on the table.
"Do you know if there was ever any official reference to his speculations?"
Harding could barely hear the words as, with bowed head, Mrs. Eustace replied.
"I did not quite catch your answer," Durham said quietly.
"I said yes, there was—once."
"Did he tell you what was said?"
"I don't know," she said after a few moments' silence. "You had better ask the bank. I don't know anything about it."
"Perhaps you know why your husband was appointed to this branch?"
"I don't know anything about it," she replied in a low tone.
"It may save time if I tell you at once, Mrs. Eustace, that the general manager of the bank has put me in possession of all information regarding your husband—you will not improve the situation by denying what I know you thoroughly understand."
Mrs. Eustace looked up and met a glance which gave her the uncomfortable sensation of being looked through and through. She lowered her eyes more quickly than she had raised them, paled and then flushed blood-red.
"Your husband did not escape through the kitchen," Durham said in his even tone of voice.
"I have already said so," Mrs. Eustace replied, scarcely above a whisper.
"He left this room by the window."
The blood left her cheeks as she started. Harding saw her hands clasp tightly.
"And you secured the window on the inside after he had gone."
"No!"
The monosyllable escaped her lips like the yap of a dog at bay.
"You secured the window on the inside after he had gone," Durham repeated in cold, unruffled tones.
Mrs. Eustace sprang to her feet and faced him.
"It's a lie," she cried. "The room was empty when I came to it."
"The room was empty, quite so. And the window was open. You closed and secured it."
"I tell you I did not."
"You have already said that you only stood at the kitchen door until you went to the office to ask whether your husband was there. Now you say the room was empty when you came to it. Which statement do you expect me to believe?"
"I don't care what you believe," she cried. "You have no right to ask me these questions. I will not answer you. Mr. Harding, I appeal to you. If you have no regard for the honour of an absent friend, at least you might protect the wife of your friend from insult."
Durham's eyes never wavered as he watched her.
"No insult is offered or intended, Mrs. Eustace," he said quietly. "Mr. Harding, in the interests of the bank, as well as in the interests of your husband, is desirous, as we all are, of knowing the truth. I will ask you one more question: Where were you when Mrs. Burke left the dining-room and crossed the passage to the front door?"
Mrs. Eustace, with close-set lips, stood defiantly silent.
"Will you answer that question?" Durham said.
"No, I will not. I will tolerate this no longer."
With a quick, angry gesture she turned to the door.
Durham was on his feet and in front of her before she could take two steps.
"Until I have seen your servant, Mrs. Eustace, you will remain here," he said. "Will you kindly come with me, Mr. Harding?"
He held the door open while Harding passed out, following him without another word.
But there was little to be ascertained from Bessie more than she had already told. She heard the door slam and her mistress go to the kitchen door, but whether she went on to the dining-room or not, Bessie "didn't notice."
"Could you see out of the window at the time?" Durham asked.
"No, sir, I was in the scullery washing up," the girl replied.
Mrs. Eustace, much to Harding's surprise, was still in the dining-room on their return. The papers Durham had placed on the table were untouched.
"I am sorry to have had to detain you, Mrs. Eustace. For the present I have nothing further to ask you. These papers you had better take—I have no doubt they were left for you."
"What do you mean—left for me?" she exclaimed.
"A woman of your quick intelligence, Mrs. Eustace, scarcely needs to be told," he answered, adding, as he turned to Harding, "I would like a few moments with you in the office."
In the little ante-room that Eustace had used as his private office, Durham turned the searchlight of his questions upon Harding.
"Have you known Mr. Eustace for very long?"
"I have only known him personally since I came to this branch a few weeks ago."
"Did you apply to be sent here?"
"No. I knew nothing about it until I received instructions to come."
"Did you know Mrs. Eustace before you came here?"
"Not as Mrs. Eustace."
"You knew her before she was married?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Yes."
"Am I right in saying that you knew her very well?"
"Yes, I did know her very well."
"Don't think I am attempting to pry into your private affairs, Mr. Harding. In a case of this kind, the clues that lead to the unravelling of the mystery often lie on the surface in some trifling circumstance that seemingly has nothing whatever to do with the main question. You have already realised, I take it, that we are concerned with something quite distinct from the ordinary class of crime. Perhaps you have not had sufficient experience with the criminal class to recognise what was apparent to me from the beginning, that in this matter we are following the work of one who is a master of his craft."
"So far as that goes, I am absolutely dazed," Harding exclaimed. "The more I hear, the more hopelessly confused I grow."
"I am not surprised. You are following the work of someone who is, I am quite satisfied, no ordinary criminal, but one of the most astute, clever and unscrupulous individuals who ever adopted dishonesty as a profession. If I ask you questions which appear to you to be irrelevant and possibly impertinent, will you give me credit for being actuated only by my sense of duty, and answer those questions as fully and as accurately as you can?"
"Certainly," Harding replied.
"Thank you. Now, will you tell me this—Were you ever engaged to Mrs. Eustace before she married her present husband?"
"Yes."
"Did she break it off, or did you?"
"She—she married."
"She married Eustace, while she was practically engaged to you?"
"While she was actually engaged to me."
"Then he must have known of your existence?"
"I assume so, but—well, nothing was ever said about it between us. I will tell you exactly what happened. The letters I had written to her, the presents I had given her, and her engagement ring, were returned to me in a packet through the post with a piece of wedding-cake. Until I came here and met her, I did not know to whom she was married. Whether Eustace knew we had once been engaged I do not know. I never referred to it."
"You never knew that, in applying for an assistant, he named you personally to the general managerof the bank and gave as a reason a long-standing friendship?"
The look of astonishment which showed on Harding's face was sufficient answer.
"Yet it is what happened—I have the information from your general manager."
Waroona Downs was fifteen miles from Waroona township by the road, and ten as the crow flies, the intrusion of a rocky and precipitous range making it impossible to take the shorter and more direct route. One had perforce to use the road, and the road turned and twisted where the level plains were broken by the range, passing, at one stage, through a narrow gorge hemmed in by steep, rock-strewn heights, on which a growth of stunted gums flourished sufficiently to hide the jagged boulders from the road below.
Half-way through the gorge a stream, having its source in a series of springs hidden among the tumbled rocks, swept across the track in a shallow ford. The road dipped to it on both sides, the constant flow of water having stripped away the soil and left a barrier of naked rock which dammed back the stream to form a wide pool sheltered among the hills and fringed by a more luxurious growth of vegetation than clothed the heights above.
The last gleam of the setting sun shed a ruddy tinge on the topmost branches of the trees as Durham reached where the road dipped to the stream. The subdued light in the pass made the distances elusiveand turned the shadows into subtle mysteries of purpling greys. The air was full of the scent from the thickly growing vegetation, but, save for the rippling swish of the water trickling across the track, the silence was unbroken.
Durham reined in his horse and sat loosely in his saddle as his glance swept over the tangled masses of undergrowth, the tumbled boulders peeping here and there from amid the shadows, the precipitous sides of the pass, and the broken ruggedness of the ground beyond. But it was not an appreciation of the picturesque, nor a recognition of the poetry in landscape which held him. He saw in the place only such a spot as the men concerned in the robbery of the bank would select for hiding their booty. Within that maze of rock and tree and mountain, how many nooks there must be to serve the purpose.
Had he been occupied only with the matter of the robbery, he would have started there and then to satisfy himself whether his surmise was correct, and whether the missing thousands were not lying perhaps a few yards away, hidden among the undergrowth and boulders. But there was more than the robbery in his mind; it was not alone to make inquiries on the subject that he had ridden away on a journey Brennan could have accomplished equally well. There was a much more personal note in the affair.
Durham was in love, and with a woman he had only met once, and of whom he knew nothing more than her name.
Travelling one day by coach, he had, for a fellow-passenger, a woman. A dozen signs showed him that she was a new arrival in the country, unused to colonial ways, unversed in colonial methods. It was natural for him, at such places as they stopped for meals, to extend to her a share of the attention his official position secured for him. It was also natural for him to drift into conversation with her.
The companion of his coaching experience was named Burke—Nora Burke—she had told him. Nora Burke was one of the victims of the bank robbery, and, apparently, the last person who had had anything to say to the vanished bank manager. It was more to ascertain whether the heroine of the coach journey were the same as the owner of Waroona Downs, than to learn what Eustace had or had not said, that Durham determined to ride out to the station.
Even as his glance wandered over the picturesque scene before him, he was impatient to press on—five miles had yet to be covered before he reached Waroona Downs. He pulled the bridle with a jerk and rode steadily until he was clear of the range. Then he put his horse at a gallop and kept the pace till he saw the gleam of a light from the window of a house set back from the road. In the dusk he could not make out all the detail of the place, but Brennan told him the homestead was the first house he would come to after clearing the range.
He swung on to the side track leading to the house. As he came up to it he saw the figure of a woman silhouetted against the light.
"Is this Mrs. Burke's?" he called out.
"And if it is, what might you want?"
His heart leaped as he heard the answer—despite the sharp ring, sharp almost to harshness, he recognised the voice. It was that of the companion of his coach journey.
A low verandah, about three feet from the ground, ran along the front of the house. It was on the verandah the woman stood. Durham sprang from the saddle, slipped his bridle over a post, and stepped up the short flight of stairs.
The woman had drawn back into the shadow beyond the window. As he advanced, the light from the lamp within fell upon him, revealing to her the uniform he wore.
With a soft, melodious laugh she came forward.
"Why didn't you say you were a trooper?" she said. "I thought——"
"I am Sub-Inspector Durham," he said quickly.
"Oh, indeed," she replied.
She met his glance without a suggestion of recognition in her own.
"I have ridden out to ask you one or two questions in regard to the robbery at the bank, of which I understand you have heard," he said.
"Ask me questions? And pray what have I to do with the robbery, save that I am an unfortunate victim of the dishonesty of men you and the rest of the police ought to be chasing at this very moment? Ask me questions? It's me who has need to ask them of you. Where are my stolen papers? Where——"
"If you will give me your assistance by answering the few questions I wish to ask you, I have no doubt that your papers, and all the rest of the stolen property, will very soon be recovered," Durham said. "I understand you saw Mr. Eustace this forenoon. Will you tell me——"
"Ask Mr. Eustace himself," she retorted. "He can tell you what I said."
She stood in front of him, with her hands hanging down hidden in the folds of her dress.
"I will not detain you long. I have been travelling since early to-day and have to ride back to the township to-night."
"Travelling all day? Sure you must be tired!" she exclaimed. "Come inside and rest—this affair has so upset me I'm forgetting that Irish hospitality ought to be the first rule for Irish folk wherever they may happen to be. Come in, come in."
She led the way into the room where the lamp was burning. As she stepped in through the long open window Durham saw she was carrying a heavy revolver in the half-hidden hand.
"You were evidently prepared for emergencies," he said.
She laughed as she laid the weapon on the table.
"After what happened to-day, Mr. Durham, I'm all nerves. When I heard you riding to the house I was frightened lest it should be some more of the scoundrels coming to see what else they could rob from me. You see, I'm all alone here except for poor old Patsy Malone—he's just a poor half-wittedfool who was with my husband and my husband's father before him, and he thinks, poor old creature, that wherever I go he has to go too. I had to bring him out here with me to save the scandal he would have made. Sure, he's harmless enough anywhere, but what could he do if some of those thieving scoundrels rode up here and robbed me of the last few papers and things those bank rascals have not yet had the chance of stealing? But sit down, Mr. Durham, sit down. I'll tell the old fool to get you some tea—a cup won't harm you after your long ride. And maybe you'll take just a bit of something? You'll be hungry."
She was out of the room before Durham could answer, but he heard her calling for her ancient retainer and giving him instructions with the same volubility that she had shown when speaking to him.
"It won't be a minute, Mr. Durham. Luckily the fire was still in, for Patsy was only finished washing the dishes scarcely five minutes ago. And what is the news from the township? Have they caught the robbers yet? Or do you think they have very far to look for them if they really want the man who did it? Now there's a foolish thing for me to say! I forgot. Of course, it's yourself that has come up to catch him. You'll forgive me, Mr. Durham, but I can assure you I never had so great a shock to my nerves as I had to-day. What's to become of me now that all those documents are gone? You see, when I came away my solicitor in Dublin—you see, he was my husband's solicitor and his father's solicitor before him, so, as you may judge, he is an old man,though not so old as old Patsy out there—but, as I was saying, he said——"
She commenced speaking as she entered the room, continued as she walked to the table and sat down, and appeared to Durham as though she were going on indefinitely.
"Will you pardon me one moment," he said. "I left my horse at——"
"Of course, of course," she cried, starting up. "Sure the poor beast will be tired, too, and hungry. Wait, wait, Mr. Durham, I'll send old Patsy——"
"Oh, no, don't trouble. I'll just take the saddle off and turn him into the yard. It's Brennan's horse and had a feed before we started."
He was out on the verandah before she could leave the room.
When he returned, Mrs. Burke was watching a bent and decrepit-looking old man laying the cloth. He gave a furtive glance at Durham as he entered the room.
"Go on with your work, Patsy, go on, and don't dawdle. Don't I tell you Mr. Durham is both tired and hungry? Never mind looking at folk. Go on now."
Patsy mumbled an inaudible reply as he stooped over the table.
"You must bear with him, Mr. Durham," she said as soon as the old man had left the room. "He's been so long with the Burke family he feels he's entitled to know everyone who comes into the place. You see what a fragile old creature he is—and he'sall I've got in the place if some of those scoundrels come and attack us."
She jumped out of her seat and paced from one end of the room to the other.
"Sure I was a fool," she exclaimed. "I ought to have asked Brennan to come out. He's half Irish, leastways he's Irish born in Australia, and he'd have understood."
"I don't think you need be afraid, Mrs. Burke," Durham said quietly. "You're not likely to be troubled."
"Oh, you don't know. You're a great strong man and able to fight a dozen maybe. But a lonely woman—haven't they got my papers, and won't they think that there's a lot more in the house and money too, maybe, and jewels? And what is there to keep them from robbing the place and burning it down over our heads, with only that poor old fool out there and a poor weak woman like myself to face?"
He looked at her as she paced to and fro, her handsome figure moving with the grace of a Delilah and her wonderful eyes flashing a greater eloquence than her tongue, as her glance from time to time caught his.
"You need not be afraid," he repeated. "Those responsible for the robbery of the bank will not be anxious to appear anywhere in public for some time."
She stood in the centre of the room where the full glare of the lamp fell upon her.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, "I don't know. I would not trust them. Besides——"
"Besides what?"
"Well, I was thinking that nobody knows who they are for certain, and what difference would it make to them, or to any of us, if they rode down the main street of Waroona under the very noses of yourself and all the troopers in Australia?"
"That is scarcely likely, Mrs. Burke."
"I don't know," she repeated. "You don't know who they are, or you would have them inside the walls of the lock-up. Now tell me, have you any idea?"
"I cannot tell you that, Mrs. Burke. What I can tell you is to put out of your mind entirely any fear that they will pay you a visit."
She shook her head and resumed her walk to and fro.
"Suppose they come?" she exclaimed, halting at the table opposite to him. "Suppose they come at dead of night? I might be murdered in my bed while I was asleep and only know it when I woke up to find myself killed."
Durham laughed.
"It's true, and you know it, Mr. Durham. Sure I never was so shaken and nervous as I am to-night! Could you send Brennan out when you return to the township?"
"I am afraid that is impossible," he said.
"But why? Sure the fellow has nothing to do but sleep, and he may as well sleep here as in his own quarters."
"He is on duty to-night."
"On duty? Now that the bank's robbed, I suppose he's guarding it? The horse is stolen, so you lock the door of the empty stable, Mr. Durham; but where there's a chance of another horse being stolen you let it look after itself as best it may. And that's what you call doing your duty and earning the money we poor unfortunate taxpayers have to provide for you!"
"I am afraid I cannot discuss that matter with you, Mrs. Burke," he said coldly.
"No!" she retorted hotly. "No, you can't. All you can do is to put the only constable in the place to guard an empty bank——"
"There is a reason why Brennan should remain in the township to-night. It is therefore quite impossible for him to come out here—as well as being unnecessary."
She flounced round and resumed her rapid striding until old Patsy appeared with the tea.
"Make haste, now, Patsy, make haste!" she exclaimed. "Sure you are the slowest old fool ever set on the earth to delay and keep people waiting."
The old man, mumbling to himself, set the meal and left the room.
"Now, Mr. Durham, just make yourself at home with such scant hospitality as I can show you. If it was in Ireland, sure I'd give you a meal worth the eating, but here, with me not knowing whether I'm to own this place or not, and without a soul about it save useless old Patsy to do a hand's turn, you'll understand it's only a poor pot-luck sort of spread at the best I can offer. But such as it is, it is offeredwith a free heart, though you are going to leave me to be murdered by the scoundrels whenever they like to come."
"You will laugh at your fears to-morrow," Durham said as he drew up to the table.
"They are not fears, Mr. Durham. You don't know; you're not Irish, and so don't understand, but Brennan would. It's not fear. It's what we term presentiment. Not all the Irish have it, but only some of them. It's my misfortune to be one of them. I have it. Sure I was tortured the whole of last night, what with anxiety and sleeplessness and worry, and all through that wretched bank affair. It was presentiment. I tried to laugh myself out of it, but as soon as I got into the township this very morning, what did I hear? Of course, you know. Well, now I have just the same feeling that to-night there's to be more dirty work by those thieving scoundrels, and it's here they're coming this time, here—and I'm to be left to their mercy, just one poor weak, defenceless woman and an old half-witted fool of a man. It makes me just——"
She left her sentence uncompleted as she turned away, with a break in her voice, and stood by the open window leading out on to the verandah. As Durham glanced at her he saw her shoulders heave and her hands convulsively clasp.
Through the chill of her forgetfulness the love impulse surged.
"If you are really so distressed about the matter," he said quickly, "if you really fear you will be attacked to-night, I will stay here till the morning."
With a magnificent gesture she faced round from the window and came swiftly towards him, her eyes sparkling, her lips wreathed in a happy smile.
"Oh, what a weight of care you have taken from my mind!" she cried. "I can rest now in peace and comfort without thinking that every moment may be my last on earth."
"But if they come they may kill me. What then?" Durham asked, with a smile which had more than amusement in it.
She flashed her brilliant glance at him, raising her eyes quickly to his and drooping them slowly behind the shelter of the dark, heavy lashes.
"No," she said softly. "You are too brave a man—they will not dare to come while you are here."
"And so your presentiment passes into thin air?" he said.
"It's relieved," she said. "Maybe I'm too timid—that affair has upset me so much. Now tell me, do you really think you know who the thieves are?"
She sat down at the table opposite to him and leaned her chin on her hands, her loose sleeves falling away from her arms and revealing, to the best advantage, their rounded whiteness. Into her eyes there came the flicker of a challenge, the sparkle of mischief which gave a new character to her face, a different expression to all he had hitherto seen. There was flippant raillery in her voice as she repeated her question.
"Do you really think you will find out who the thieves are?" she exclaimed.
"One I already know," he replied, fixing his eyes on her as his square jaws set firm in his effort to refrain from allowing his features to relax into the smile which was hovering so near.
For a moment the lines round her eyes hardened, and the sparkle became a flash before it melted again as a rippling laugh came from her lips.
"How terribly stern you look!" she cried in a mocking voice. "Do you ever think of anything but your work, Mr. Durham?"
"Not when I have anything at all difficult on hand," he replied.
"Then this does puzzle you?"
"It has its difficulties; but, for all that, it is a problem I shall solve."
Again the rippling laugh rang through the room.
"Why, of course! Was there ever a case the police had in hand where they did not have a clue at the very beginning?"
"Several," he answered. "A clever, resourceful criminal, Mrs. Burke, always has the advantage. Where they fail ultimately is in becoming too sure of themselves and too forgetful of the network of snares laid to entrap them and always waiting to trip them."
"I suppose that is so," she said slowly. "I suppose that is so. Poor things—I can't help pitying them, Mr. Durham. One never knows what lies behind their wickedness—what it was which first sent them rolling down the slope that ends—often—on the gallows."
She shuddered as she spoke, averting her face from him.
"This is a dismal subject," he exclaimed. "Let us change it. Will you answer the questions I want to ask you about the bank affair?"
"Ask them. Oh! ask the wretched things and let me get it over. Sure I begin to hate the mention of it," she exclaimed as she shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
Without apparently heeding her objection, he asked her to say whether anyone was in the passage as she passed from the dining-room to the entrance of the bank.
"Of course there was. Didn't I tell Brennan at once?" she said.
"Who was it?"
"His wife."
"Brennan's?"
"Brennan's! No! The bank manager's; she was just outside the door—listening, I'll be bound."
"You are sure of that?"
"Sure that she was listening? Well, isn't she a woman? What else would she be doing?"
"That is all I want to ask you," he said quietly.
She looked at him wonderingly.
"All?" she asked. "You rode out from Waroona merely to ask me that bit of a question?"
He nodded.
"Well, then," she exclaimed, "if that's howyou're going to catch the thieves it's good-bye to my papers."
The eyes which met his told of anger and indignation.
"You expected a rigid cross-examination?" he asked, with a smile.
"I expected questions which would have some bearing on the affair," she retorted.
"Your experience in this sort of thing is somewhat limited, Mrs. Burke. A tangled skein is unravelled by following a mere thread, not by tearing at the entire mass. I have hold of a thread, and I am following it."
"And where will it lead you?"
"Where? It does not matter where so long as the tangle is made straight."
"While my papers and my——"
"You need not be uneasy," he interrupted. "They are just as safe as though you held them in your hand."
"Safe for those who stole them," she retorted, with a short, satirical laugh.
"Safe for you," he answered. "You have not been long enough in the country to realise how complete a system of detection we have here. I have never felt more certain of securing both the culprits and the stolen property than I am in this case."
Again she gave a short, satirical laugh.
"Oh, yes," she said. "Of course. You know exactly where the thieves are and where they have hidden what was taken and also where they arehiding. You can put your hands on them whenever you like. One does not need to come to Australia to hear that sort of romance, Mr. Durham; I hoped rather that one would not hear it in Australia, but you police are as capable at blundering and bungling and bluffing here as elsewhere."
"I am neither bungling nor bluffing," he answered quietly.
"You are doing both," she replied warmly. "What are you doing here now? Why have you come bothering me with ridiculous questions? What can I tell you more than the bank people themselves? Or is it that you think I am the thief? Why don't you say at once you suspect me—old Patsy and myself? Sure it would be in keeping with the rest of it—wasting your time and mine by coming out to ask who was in the passage when I left the dining-room! What has that to do with my loss? Do you think I care whether Mrs. Eustace heard what I told her husband? I'd say it to her face if she likes, just as I said it to his. I told him he ought to be arrested, and I say so to you. I'd arrest him and his wife and his assistant and his servant—everyone in the place if I had my way."
He was watching the light flashing in her eyes, watching and admiring. The full rich tones of her voice vibrated with the heat of her words, her bosom rose and fell as in her indignation wave after wave of expression swept across her face, each one intensifying the charm she had for him.
"I suppose you include me in your list of suspects," she blurted out as he did not speak. "Why don't you say so at once? Your questions certainly suggest it."
"Do they?" he asked, with a smile which irritated her.
"Yes, they do. What else do they suggest? It would be quite in keeping with the rest of the business—you riding out here to ask me pointless questions while the people most likely to have been concerned in the robbery are left alone. They are known, I suppose you will say, where I am a stranger, someone you have never seen before——"
"You are wrong," he interrupted, still smiling; "I have seen you before."
Her eyes concentrated on his with keen intensity.
"When? Where?" she asked sharply.
"We were fellow-passengers by a coach four or five months back. You have forgotten me, but I"—now that the personal note had been struck, the note he wished so much to sound and yet shrank from, he was almost carried away by it; by an effort he checked himself, and instead of telling her all that the meeting had meant for him, he added, "I rarely forget a face when I have once seen it."
She flashed a swift glance at him, reading in his eyes, in his face, in his attitude, the confirmation of what she knew from the tone of his voice.
"But you—you do not—remember me," he saidslowly as she did not reply. He saw the glance, saw the fleeting questioning light in her eyes, and with the fatuity bred of love-blindness, misread it.
"I do remember—distinctly," she answered softly. "I recognised you as you came on to the verandah. I thought it was you who had forgotten—or did not wish to remember."
As she spoke the last words softly, demurely, she raised her eyes to his and looked steadily at him with no sign on her face of her recent indignation.
"I not wish to remember? I not wish to remember you?" he exclaimed in a ringing tone. "Why—it was because I have never ceased to remember that I came here to-night. Your name was mentioned at Waroona—it was the only clue you gave me when we parted, the only clue I had to follow when I tried to find you, tried to trace you every day since then. I have never ceased to seek for you, never ceased to think of you, nor to remember the day I met you. Had you not been here to-night, had I found it was someone else with a similar name, I should not have forgotten you—I shall never do that—never."
She sat back in her chair, her eyes downcast, a slight frown puckering her brows. He saw the frown as she spoke and it checked his words, but he continued to watch her steadily, noting the graceful, yet seemingly unstudied way in which the wavy mass of her luxuriant hair was coiled on her head, the clear whiteness of her skin, the heavy fringe of herdrooping lashes. Even as he watched she raised her eyes to his.
For one brief moment she allowed them to rest, filled with an earnestness and depth of softness that made his pulses leap again.
Impulsively he stretched out his hand to her across the table.
She lowered her glance, and a faint smile flickered round her lips.
"I must away," she said softly, as she arose. "You will need a good night's rest after your long and wearying ride."
He pushed away his chair, as he started abruptly to his feet. The warmth of his impulse went cold.
"I shall start with the dawn or before it," he said, keeping his eyes averted from the glamour of her face. "I have a riding-cloak. I will take this hammock-chair on to the verandah. Don't let me disturb you."
"But you cannot go in the morning without a bite," she replied.
"I shall require nothing," he said brusquely. "I shall be away before you are awake. I am merely staying to set your mind at rest on the question of the house being visited and robbed. Don't let me disturb you—or detain you."
She bent her head slowly and gracefully.
"As you will," she replied in a gentle voice. "Good night, Mr. Durham."
Without waiting for a reply she turned and went from the room, closing the door quietly after her.
He stood where she had left him, staring fixedly at the closed door.
"I was a fool to come, a greater fool to speak," he muttered savagely. "What satisfaction is there in knowing who she is, when——"
He swung round petulantly, diving his hand into his pocket for a pipe. When it was filled and lighted, he dragged his chair out on to the verandah, lowered the lamp flame to a glimmer, pushed-to the window, and lay back in the chair, blowing furious clouds of smoke out upon the night and staring, with unseeing eyes, into the dark.
But always before him there floated the vision of the speaking grey-blue eyes looking at him from the shelter of their dark-fringed lashes; always in his brain he heard the gentle melody of her voice as she had last spoken to him, and always there came to taunt and goad him the jarring memory of the half-mocking way in which she had pushed back upon himself the frank revelation he had made. But though it jarred, it had no power to lessen the fascination she exercised over him. Despite her rebuff, despite the seeming hopelessness of his infatuation, it held him. The more he tried to force it back, the stronger it grew; the greater, the more beautiful and more lovable did Mrs. Burke appear to be.
The jarring note passed from his memory. Under the soothing quiet of the night and the stillness of the bush, looming dark and mysterious against the sky, scarcely less sombre with only the light of the stars to illumine it, his fancy was filled with theimage he had carried in his mind for so many months. The weariness of an arduous day added its softening influence, and he drifted out upon the sea of dreams and thence into a deep slumber, while yet his pipe was unfinished.
While Harding sat talking to Brennan in the office, Bessie came to him with a note.
"Mrs. Eustace asked me to give you this, sir," the girl said, as she handed it to him at the door.
He tore open the envelope. A single sheet of paper was enclosed, on which was written, "For the sake of the bygone days, come to me."
"Where is Mrs. Eustace?" he asked.
"She's in her room, Mr. Harding, in her little sitting-room."
It was one of the rooms where he had never been, a tiny chamber at the far end of the passage which she had made into a boudoir. Once he had seen into it through the open door, seen the daintiness with which it was decorated, a daintiness redolent of her as he had known her in the days when, for him, the world held no other woman.
And she had chosen this as the place where they should meet!
He knocked at the door, and heard her voice answer, bidding him to come in. She was sitting in a cane lounge-chair, listless, pale, and weary-eyed.
As he entered she gave him one swift glance and then looked away.
"Do you wish to see me, Mrs. Eustace?" he asked in a cold, formal voice.
She did not reply at once, but sat with her head bowed and her hands loosely clasped in her lap.
"If you will say what you wish to as quickly as you can, I shall be obliged," he said. "Brennan is in the office, and I have some matters to arrange with him."
Her head was raised slowly, steadily, until her face was turned full towards him.
"Will you please arrange them first?" she replied. "I want to say something which may take some time, and I—I would not inconvenience the bank."
"I would rather hear what you have to say first, Mrs. Eustace."
She shook her head.
"It is not a matter I can sum up in a few brief sentences," she replied. "If you cannot arrange things with Brennan and then come to me here, pray forget I mentioned anything about it."
He moved uneasily as she averted her face and sat back in her chair.
"I will see what I can do," he said shortly, and left the room.
When he returned to the office he found Brennan talking to Bessie, who had brought him some supper and a couple of blankets with which to make a bed on the floor. Brennan nodded towards them as Bessie disappeared.
"You know the idea of my being here at all, don't you?" he asked.
"To tell you the truth, I don't," Harding replied.
"The Sub-Inspector fancies someone may try to get back to learn what he can about our doings. You know who will most likely be asked, and so you see what it means when, as soon as I am here, and before I say a word about staying, these things are brought in. As if there is likely to be any sleep for me with the chance of the Sub-Inspector riding up any hour and catching me off duty. But it shows what's in the wind, doesn't it?"
"Mrs. Eustace has asked me to discuss something with her," Harding said quietly. "She knows you are here to-night."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Harding. She knows that, I've no doubt, but how did she or the girl know I was to be on duty here all the night? Don't you see? Supposing the Sub-Inspector is right, and a certain person we know wants to hear all that had happened since he went away, is he likely to come while I am here? It is not difficult to put a lighted lamp in a window, or to leave a blind pulled up or drawn down, is it? Anything of the kind is enough to give him a warning that the coast is clear or that there is danger ahead."
"Oh, but we can easily stop that," Harding exclaimed. "We can easily prevent any signal being used."
"If you know what the signal is," Brennan said. "But if you don't know, what are you to do?"
"We shall have to watch."
"That's it, we shall have to watch and take care nobody knows it," Brennan replied in a low tone. "Have you a revolver?"
"No. The one we kept in the bank was stolen from the drawer with the money."
"Then slip this into your pocket," Brennan said, as he passed a bright nickel-plated "bull-dog" to Harding. "It's loaded in all the chambers and has a snap trigger; but it's no good for a long shot, though it makes as much noise as a service carbine. Don't hesitate to use it if anything happens—the noise will let me know, and there's no danger of hitting anyone with it unless you are a better shot than I am."
"But where are you going?"
Brennan jerked his head towards the door.
"You see me off the premises and then tell the girl to fetch those blankets away again. After that, keep your eyes open and rest assured that as soon as you let off the barker I've given you, I shall not be far off. If there is any arrangement such as I have suggested, my going now will put them off their guard and our gentleman will get the signal to make his call as expected. Bringing in those blankets has given the game away—to me it shows just what is in the wind."
When he had seen Brennan off the premises, Harding told Bessie to remove the blankets from the office, and returned to the little room.
The door was ajar when he reached it, but there was no answer to his rap. He pushed it open and entered. Mrs. Eustace was not there.
He turned, and came face to face with her as he stood in the doorway, though he had not heard her approach.
"I did not hear you coming," he exclaimed.
"No, I am wearing light shoes," she answered. "But won't you sit down? Have you made all your arrangements? I don't want to begin to say what I wish if you will have to go away before I have finished."
"There is nothing to call me away now. Brennan has gone," he said, as he took the chair she indicated.
"Before I begin, I must ask you to forgive me for mentioning the subject at all," she said slowly.
She sat facing him and, up to that moment, had kept her eyes fixed on him; but as she ceased speaking she glanced aside until her head was bowed as it had been previously. He took advantage of the opportunity to give one quick look round. The chair in which he sat was so placed that the profile of the person occupying it was thrown by the light of the lamp directly upon the window-blind. The window faced the bush at the back of the bank.
He moved his chair until his shadow fell on the wall, but then the lamp was between her and himself, and he could not watch her face.
"I will take this chair," he said shortly, as he stepped to the one where she had been sitting when he first came to the room. From it he commanded not only a complete view of her, but also out of the window, for the blind, pulled down to the full extent, was slightly askew, and left a space between it and the window-pane. Through that space he could see across the yard to the fence running round the allotment, and beyond it to the dark line of the bush, rendered the darker at the moment by the soft sheen of the rising moon showing above it.
A silence followed his movement, a silence during which she fidgeted uneasily and impatiently.
"You do not answer," she said presently. "Shall I go on?"
"I am waiting for you to do so," he replied.
"You will forgive me for mentioning this subject?"
"You have not mentioned any subject yet, Mrs. Eustace. I don't know what it is you wish to talk about."
"I am afraid it is very distasteful to you. I am not surprised if it is, but—if you knew everything in connection with it, you might think differently. That is why I want to tell you."
"Yes," he said indifferently, as she paused.
"You do not want to speak of it," she said again. "But I must explain—I ought to have done so directly you came up here. I want to explain my conduct to you when I returned your——"
"There is no need," he interrupted her. "That matter was at an end at once. There is no benefit to be gained by attempting to revive it."
"I do not seek to revive it," she retorted, colouring at his words. "Surely if I wish to set straight what I know is not straight, I am not seeking to revive it? I wish to make one thing clear to you. You have not known Charlie as long as I have. Neither do you know him as well as I do. In the face of the accusations made by that police inspector anything may be said or suspected."
He did not reply, and she went on.
"You, hearing Charlie painted in the blackest colours, are not likely to raise any protest either toyourself or to anyone else. You will rather believe all ill of him and will most likely impute things to him he never did. One thing I do not want blamed on to him. Those letters and things which were sent back to you, I sent—I sent them entirely myself—Charlie did not send them—I sent them."