CHAPTER XXIX.
“When haughty expectations prostrate lieAnd grandeur crouches like a guilty thing.”
“When haughty expectations prostrate lieAnd grandeur crouches like a guilty thing.”
“When haughty expectations prostrate lieAnd grandeur crouches like a guilty thing.”
“When haughty expectations prostrate lie
And grandeur crouches like a guilty thing.”
Theodore walked moodily along the lane leading to the West Gate, brooding over discrepancies and difficulties in the case which he had set himself to unravel. As he drew near Mrs. Porter’s cottage he saw Lord Cheriton come out of the porch, unattended. He came slowly down the steps to the gate, with his head bent, and his shoulders stooping wearily, an attitude which was totally unlike his usual erect carriage, an attitude which told distinctly of mental trouble.
Theodore overtook him, and walked by his side, at the risk of being considered intrusive. He was very curious as to his kinsman’s motive for visiting Mrs. Porter, after yesterday’s conversation about Mercy.
“Have you been trying to bring about a reconciliation between mother and daughter?” he asked.
“No. I have told you that little good could result from bringing those two obstinate spirits together. You have seen for yourself what the daughter can be—how perverse, how cruel, what a creature of prejudice and whim. The mother’s nature is still harder. What good could come of bringing such a daughter back to such a mother? No, it was with no hope of reconciliation that I called upon Mrs. Porter. I have been thinking very seriously of your friend Ramsay’s suggestion of mental trouble. I regret that I did not act upon the hint sooner, and get my friend Mainwaring to see her, and advise upon the case. I shall certainly consult him about her—but as he has a very important practice, and a large establishment under his care, it may be very difficult for him to come to Cheriton. I think, therefore, it might be well to send her up to the neighbourhood of London—to some quiet northern suburb, for instance, within half an hour’s drive of Mainwaring’s asylum, which is near Cheshunt; then, if it should be deemed advisable to place her under restraint for a time—though I cannot suppose that likely—the business could be easily accomplished.
“Your idea then would be——”
“To take her up to London, with her servant, as soon as I have found comfortable lodgings for her in a quiet neighbourhood. I haveproposed the journey to her this afternoon, on the ground of her being out of health and in need of special advice. I told her that people had remarked upon her altered appearance, and that I was anxious she should have the best medical care. She did not deny that she was ailing. I think, therefore, there will be very little difficulty in getting her away when I am ready to remove her.”
“What is your own impression as to her mental condition?”
“I regret to say that my impression very much resembles that of your friend. I see a great change in her since I last had any conversation with her. Yes, I fear that there is something amiss, and that it is no longer well for her to live in that cottage, with a young girl for her only companion. It would be far better for her to be in a private asylum—where, hers being a very mild case, life might be made easy and agreeable for her. I know my friend Mainwaring to be a man of infinite benevolence, and that there would be nothing wanting to lighten her burden.”
He sighed heavily. There was a look in his face of unutterable care, of a despondency which saw no issue, no ray of light far off in the thickening gloom. Theodore thought he looked aged by several years since yesterday, as if the evidence of the pistol had struck him to the heart.
“He knows now that it was his own sin that brought about this evil,” thought Theodore.
He could conceive the agony of the father’s heart, knowing that for his own wrong-doing his innocent daughter had been called upon to make so terrible an expiation. He could penetrate into the dark recesses of the sinner’s mind, where remorse for that early error, and for all the false steps which it had necessitated, dominated every other thought. Till yesterday James Dalbrook might have supposed his sin a thing of the past, atoned for and forgiven—its evil consequences suffered in the past, the account ruled off in the book of fate, and the acquittance given. To-day he knew that his sin had cost him his daughter’s happiness; and over and above that horror of the past there lay before him the hazard of some still greater horror in the future. Could anybody wonder that his eyes were sunken and dull, as they never had been before within Theodore’s memory? Could anybody wonder at the strained look in the broad, open forehead, beneath which the eyes looked out wide apart under strongly-marked brows; or at the hard lines about the mouth, which told of sharpest mental pain?
Late that evening, when Lady Cheriton had gone to bed, Theodore approached the subject of the pistol.
“Did you compare the ball with the revolver that was found yesterday?” he asked.
“Yes. The ball fits the bore. I don’t know that the fact goesto prove much—but so far as it goes it is now in the knowledge of our local police. Unfortunately they are not the most brilliant intellects I know of.”
“If you will let me have the pistol to-night before we go to bed I will go up to town by an early train to-morrow and take it to Scotland Yard, as you suggested.”
“I suggested nothing of the kind, my dear Theodore. I attach very little importance to the discovery of the pistol as a means towards discovering the murderer. I said you might take it to Scotland Yard if you liked—that was all.”
“I should like to do so. I should feel better satisfied——”
“Oh, satisfy yourself, by all means,” interrupted Lord Cheriton irritably. “You are great upon the science of circumstantial evidence. There is the pistol,” taking it out of a drawer in the large writing-table. “Do what you like with it.”
“You are not offended with me I hope?”
“No, I am only tired—tired of the whole business, and of the everlasting talk there has been about it. If it is a vendetta, if the hand that killed Godfrey Carmichael is to kill me, and my daughter, and her son—if my race is to be eradicated from the face of this earth by an unappeasable hatred I cannot help my fate. I cannot parry the impending blow. Nor can you or Scotland Yard protect me from my foe, Theodore.”
“Scotland Yard may find your foe and lock him up.”
“I doubt it. But do as you please.”
Theodore’s train left Wareham at nine o’clock. There was a still earlier train at seven, by which farmers and other enterprising spirits who wanted to take time by the forelock were accustomed to travel; but to be in time for the nine o’clock train Theodore had to leave Cheriton at a quarter to eight, and to drive to the distant town in the dog-cart made and provided for station work, and drawn by one of two smart cobs kept for the purpose.
He left the park by the West Gate. He had to wait longer than usual for the opening of the gate; and when the chubby-cheeked maid-servant came down the steps with a key in her hand and unlocked the gate there was that in her manner which indicated a fluttered mind.
“Oh, if you please, sir, I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long, but I couldn’t find the key just at first, though I thought I’d hung it up on the nail last night after I locked the gate—but I was so upset at my mistress leaving so suddenly—never saying a word about it beforehand—that I hardly knew what I was doing.”
Theodore stopped the groom as he drove through the gate. He had a few minutes to spare, and could afford himself time to question the girl, who had a look of desiring to be interrogated.
“What is this about your mistress leaving suddenly?” he asked. “Do you mean that Mrs. Porter has gone away—on a journey.”
“Yes, indeed, sir. She that never left home before since I was a child—for I’ve known her ever since I can remember, and never knew her to be away for so much as a single night. And the first thing this morning when I was lighting the kitchen fire she opens the door and just looks in and says—‘Martha, I’m going to London. Don’t expect me back till you see me. There’s a letter on the parlour table,’ she says. ‘Let it lie there till it’s called for—don’t you touch it, nor yet the box,’ and she shuts the kitchen door and walks off just as quietly as if she was going to early church, as she has done many a time before it was daylight. I was that upset that I knelt before the stove a good few minutes before I could realize that she was gone—and then I run out and looked after her. She was almost out of sight, walking up the lane towards Cheriton.”
“Had she no luggage—did she take nothing with her?”
“Nothing. Not so much as a hand-bag.”
“What time was this?”
“It struck six a few minutes after I went back to the kitchen.”
“What about the letter—and the box your mistress spoke of?”
“There they are, sir, on the parlour table, where she left them.I’mnot going to touch them,” said the girl, with emphasis. “She told me not, and I’m not going to disobey her.”
“To whom is the letter addressed?”
“Do you mean who it’s for, sir?”
“Yes.”
“It’s for his lordship—and it’s to lie there till his lordship sends for it.”
“In that case I may as well give it to his lordship’s servant, who can take it up to the house presently.”
“I don’t know if that will be right, sir. She said it was to be called for.”
“Then we call for it. I, his lordship’s cousin, and James, his lordship’s groom. Won’t that do for you?”
“I suppose that will be right, sir,” the girl answered doubtfully. “The letter and the box are both on the table, and I wasn’t to interfere with either of ’em, and I’m not going to it. That’s all I can say.”
The girl was swollen with the importance of her mission as being associated with a mystery, and she was also in lively dread of her very severe mistress, who might come down the lane at any moment and surprise her in some act of dereliction.
Theodore passed her by and went into the sitting-room where he had taken tea with the Kempsters and Cuthbert Ramsay.
A letter lay on the carved oak table in front of the window, and beside the letter there stood a walnut-wood box, eighteen inchesby nine. The letter was addressed, in a bold, characteristic hand, to Lord Cheriton. To be called for. The box had a small brass plate upon the lid, and a name engraved upon the plate—
Thomas C. Darcy,9th Foot.
No one who had ever seen such a box before could doubt that this was a pistol-case. It was unlocked, and Theodore lifted the lid.
One pistol lay in its place, neatly fitted into the velvet-lined receptacle. The place for the second pistol was vacant.
Theodore took the Colt’s revolver from his pocket and fitted it into the place beside the other pistol. It fitted exactly, and the two pistols were alike in all respects—alike as to size and fashion, alike as to the little silver plate upon the butt, and the initials, “T. D.”
Thomas Darcy! Darcy was the name of Evelyn Strangway’s husband, and one of those pistols which had belonged at some period to Evelyn Strangway’s husband had been found in the well in the fruit garden, and the other in possession of Lord Cheriton’sprotégéeand pensioner, the humble dependant at his gates, Mrs. Porter.
Theodore changed his mind as to his plan of procedure. He did not send Mrs. Porter’s letter to Lord Cheriton by the groom as he had intended, after he himself had been driven to Wareham. His journey to London might be deferred now; indeed, in his present condition of mind, he was not the man to interview the authorities of Scotland Yard. He left Mrs. Porter’s letter in its place beside the pistol-case, and wrote a hasty line to his kinsman at Mrs. Porter’s writing-table, where all the materials for correspondence were arranged ready to his hand.
“The West Lodge, 8.15. Pray come to me here at once, if you can. I have made a terrible discovery. There is a letter for you. Mrs. Porter has gone to London.”
He put these lines into an envelope, sealed it, and then took it out to the groom, who was waiting stolidly, neatly tickling the cob’s ears now and again, with an artistic circular movement of the lash, which brought into play all the power and ease of his wrist.
“Drive back to the house with that note as fast as you can,” said Theodore, “and let his lordship know that I am waiting for him here.”