Deborahhad scarcely got outside the door when she perceived that something more than moral force would be wanted to keep Sep Jocelyn up to the simple task she wished him to perform. The mere thought of intruding unbidden upon Amos Goodhare caused him so much trepidation that she was able to measure the awful extent of the influence the old man had established over the younger ones. When, therefore, Sep had stopped and hesitated half-a-dozen times, she put her hand through his arm and gently urged him forward.
“You had better go back; let me take you back,” he whispered, afraid of the strength of her compelling will.
“Not until you have shown me Goodhare’s hiding-place, and I have assured myself that Lord St. Austell is safe,” she answered firmly.
Sep took a few steps forward with a groan, and stopped short in some relief a couple of feet from the wall at the turn in the passage.
“You’ll have to come back now,” he whispered; “and I’ll try to find out another way round. You can’t get over this wall.”
“Can’t I?” said the country girl contemptuously. “You go first and just give me a hand on the other side.”
He obeyed very reluctantly, and he scarcely got over the wall himself when the athletic young girl was by his side. After that, with a sort of dismal acquiescence in the fact that she must have her own way, he led her without further pause to the door of the house which they had made their hiding-place.
Here at last for a moment the girl’s brave spirit seemed to fail her. For Sep removed the lower boards of the door noiselessly, and she saw that the house was as black as night inside, and felt the hot fumes of stifling smoke which, coming up through the hole made in the floor of what had once been the back-shop, spread slowly through the whole house, and escaped, through what cracks and crevices it could find, into the open air.
Sep snatched at the opportunity of persuading her to go back.
“Listen,” he whispered. “Can’t you hear him singing to himself down there?”
Deborah bent forward, and caught certain fitful, crooning sounds, which, rising from time to time to a loud, savage note, made her shiver.
“He sings like that when he has done some diabolical thing,” Sep went on. And Deborah heard his teeth chatter. “It would not be safe for you to go near him now.”
“But Lord St. Austell! What can have become of him?” asked Deborah with a sudden impulse of alarm stronger than any she had felt yet.
“Well, you can’t help him, anyhow,” said Sep shuddering.
“And Rees?”
Sep did not answer. They were inside the house now, listening to that terrible crooning.
“I must find out what has happened—what is going on,” said Deborah suddenly, with decision.
“You can’t see anything unless you go down into the first cellar,” said Sep, sulkily. “And then, if he heard you go, or saw you through the door, it would be all up with you.”
“Won’t you come down with me?”
He hesitated, and then said pettishly, “Why can’t you come back?”
“I can’t till I am sure that no harm has happened to Lord St. Austell. Will you come!”
“I suppose so—if you won’t be persuaded,” said Sep, sullenly.
It was easy to descend without noise, as every precaution to deaden sound had been taken by the three confederates. The ladder was fixed quite firmly, and the rungs of it were covered with felt. Deborah went down first, and waited at the bottom of the ladder for Sep, not knowing which way to move in the darkness. But he did not come. She did not dare to call to him, and while she was debating with herself whether she should creep up the ladder again and shame him into accompanying her, a very faint sound above told her that he had broken faith and gone back, leaving her to face alone whatever danger might be awaiting her.
Her first impulse on making this discovery was indignation, not with the trembling wretch who had failed her, but with herself for her own folly in trusting him. Then immediately she set about devising what she could do. She heard a cork drawn in the lower cellar, the door of which was shut, and it seemed to her that the weird, droning sound which Amos Goodhare was making grew gradually louder. Was Lord St. Austell hiding somewhere, on the watch like herself, she wondered. Her eyes were getting accustomed to the gloom, and she now perceived, some way to the left, a faint light from above. Moving very cautiously in that direction she perceived that there was a boarded-up-window, and that a few rays of what murky daylight was left filtered through the cracks from a grating above.
As she crossed the floor her boot struck against a couple of boards that were lying there, and made a little clatter. Instantly the crooning in the next room stopped, and Deborah heard sounds as of a seat pushed back. She had time to get close to the wall under the boarded window, and to crouch down, when the door was pushed open, and against a ruddy glow of fire-light she saw the figure of Amos Goodhare.
She kept quite still.
“Rees!” called he, not loud but imperatively. A pause. He repeated the name savagely. Then, between his teeth, he muttered, “D—n the young whelp,” and took a few steps into the room.
Deborah could hear her own heart beating.
But Goodhare had not found her out. The next moment she heard the clank of glass, and as he returned to the lower cellar she saw that he carried a bottle of wine under his arm. This time he pulled the door after him, but it rebounded a little way and stood ajar. After a few more minutes of silent apprehension, during which Goodhare’s savage droning went on again, Deborah felt sufficiently secure to indulge the overwhelming anxiety and curiosity which prompted her to look at him in his den and discover whether he was really alone.
She crept over the floor, cautiously feeling with her feet before every step she took, and reaching the half-open door, found it easy to peep into the lower cellar without being seen by Goodhare. For he was sitting on the opposite side of the square grate, leaning on his elbow along one of the wooden benches, with a great pewter tankard beside him and two or three empty bottles at his feet. He was reaching the sleepy stage of intoxication, she thought, for his face wore an expression of dull ferocity as he stared into the fire.
Suddenly he lifted his head and assumed a listening attitude, becoming on the instant alert and fierce. Deborah withdrew at once from the door, afraid that he had seen her. But the next moment she heard sounds on the floor above, and a step which she thought was Rees Pennant’s. Creeping back to the wall she listened intently, and heard Goodhare push the door of the inner cellar wide open, just as some one began to climb down the ladder.
“Rees!” whispered Amos rather huskily.
“All right.”
They disappeared together into the lower cellar, pulled the door after him, and drew the bolt.
Deborah crept close to the small nail-holes where once a lock had been fixed, hoping to learn what had become of Lord St. Austell, about whom she felt every minute more anxious. She could see nothing through the holes but the glow and flicker of the fire on the walls, but she was able to distinguish every word of the conversation.
“Well,” Rees began, in a spiritless and surly voice, “you seem to have been enjoying yourself.”
“I have,” assented the other, in a tone of such savage satisfaction that Deborah seemed to feel the blood grow suddenly cold in her veins. “There’s nothing else to be done till Sep comes back.”
“He has come back,” said Rees shortly.
“Come back!” echoed Goodhare in a tone of anger and consternation. “What the d—l has he come back for?”
“You’d better ask him. I met him just now standing shivering and hesitating at the outer door of our room.”
“But he never went then! He can’t have been to Amsterdam and back since yesterday!”
“I should say not.”
“Then what has the fool done with the jewels?” asked Amos, whose tones grew more furious every moment.
Already he had drawn the bolt of the door.
“From what I could make out, some woman’s got them. But the poor wretch was in such an abject state of funk that I couldn’t get much that was intelligible out of him.”
Goodhare stammered out an oath. He seemed to be choking with rage as he burst opened the door with a rough hand.
“A woman!” he growled out. “I’ll tear the heart out of her.”
“If you can get hold of her,” says Rees drily. “But as I thought you’d make things unpleasant for the poor chap, I pushed him out of the front door and told him to put a couple of miles between you and him as fast as possible.”
Goodhare turned, very slowly. The shock of this intelligence, imparted thus coolly, seemed for the moment to overwhelm him. Then, with a howl of rage, he sprang at Rees, who nimbly avoided him.
“You dare to defy me, to help this miserable cur to escape me!”
“Yes, I tell you I’m sick of the whole business, this dog’s life and all. And I’m not sorry the jewels are gone, that I can be quit of knavery and you together. You seem to be pretty well ‘on’ to-night, and in you’re true colors you’re by no means fascinating.”
Goodhare seemed, however, to perceive the need of pulling himself together. There was a short pause before he answered, in a quieter tone:
“Don’t you think you’re rather ungrateful? You must own that I’ve shown you how to enjoy yourself, and given you the means to do it, too.”
“A poor sort of enjoyment! I’m the wreck of what I was a year and a half ago!”
“Only shows how alluring you found pleasure, that you gave yourself up to it so completely.”
“Well, I’ve had enough of it now. I’m going back to Carstow, where I’ve left a good little girl dying for love of me. I’m going to settle down to quiet respectability and forget that I ever saw your cursed face.”
“And on what money do you propose to do this?”
“That’s my affair.”
“No; mine.”
Rees had miscalculated the old man’s activity, as well as his patience. Having been in the habit of treating Goodhare with impertinence, which the ex-librarian always bore without protest, the short-sighted and vain young man thought he need set no bounds to his pertness. But as a matter of fact, every insult, every slight which he had ever put upon his accomplished tutor in evil-doing, had been stored up in the mind of the latter, who only waited to destroy his tool until he should have no further need for it. That time he thought had now come.
Maddened by the shedding of blood—that last crime which he had tried within the past hour—Goodhare gave rein to the demoniacal side of his nature, and showed all the hatred and contempt, which had been gathering in his mind against the young man since their connection first began, in one look, one exclamation which turned the young man’s blood cold, even before he felt the sinewy grip of the lean fingers about his throat.
“I’ll serve you,” he growled, “as I’ve just served a better man.” And, drawing from one of his pockets the same knife with which he had stabbed Lord St. Austell, he made a dash at Rees Pennant’s breast. But the young man was more alert than the old one had been. He flung out his hands, struck, struggled, and writhed to such good purpose that his assailant could not despatch him with the neatness he had shown in his attack on the earl. It was not until the third stab that Rees fell back with a groan, and slipping from Goodhare’s murderous hands, sank on to the nearest bench, and thence in a heap on to the floor.
The sight of the young fellow’s body, and the red stain that was spreading on the matting at his feet, seemed to sober Goodhare and bring him for the first time to a knowledge of his position. He glanced at the door, for he thought he heard sounds outside. Then, kneeling hastily down by Rees Pennant’s motionless body, he ransacked all the pockets of the young man’s clothes with eager, swift fingers. He had fancied that in them he should find the jewels, believing that Rees had either gone shares with Sep in them, or appropriated them all, with the idea that such audacity would never be suspected. Finding no trace of either jewels or money, beyond a handful of loose silver, Goodhare started to his feet, for the first time utterly horror-struck and confounded. Had he really lost his best chance of recovering the jewels? For Rees Pennant’s influence over Sep was infinitely greater than his own; besides, the story of Sep’s escape might be true.
With real solicitude he stooped over the silent huddled-up figure on the floor.
“Rees, Rees, old boy!” he cried, in a voice full of anxiety.
But he got no answer.
Enraged beyond measure, and still too much excited to be quite master of himself, he gave the inanimate body an impatient kick, and rising hastily, drank the remains of a bottle of wine without taking the trouble to pour it into the tankard, climbed out of the room, and up the ladder on to the ground floor.
Here, however, he came to a sudden check. Somebody had begun to hammer violently at the back door and just as he was making for the front, resolved to try to burst it open, he heard the sound of somebody battering it from the outside.
A moment’s thought showed him the only course open. Just as he heard the sound of the first board giving way under the crashing blows which were being hailed upon it, he sprang up the rickety stairs.
Assoon as the altercation between Goodhare and Rees grew warm, Deborah, hearing the tramp of footsteps on the pavement outside the house, had crept to the cellar window, and, unheard by the two men in their excited discussion, had torn away one of the boards from the nail which fastened it, and succeeded in attracting the attention of a passer-by, who proved to be policeman.
“Get in! break in! get in somehow!” she cried, “there are two men quarrelling here, and I’m afraid they will do each other harm.”
By that time the voices in the lower cellar were growing louder, and she stumbled across the floor, called to the men, and beat against the door. But they were too much excited to heed her. She heard upstairs the sound of knocking; and climbing up the ladder as fast as she could in the darkness, she groped her way to the front door. There was, however, nothing that she could do to help. She could only wait, sick with terror, while they hammered in the nailed-up door from the outside. Before the first board gave way, she heard someone pass her in the darkness and spring up the staircase. From the agility with which he mounted she thought it must be Rees.
“Rees, is it you? Are you safe? Hide, hide yourself,” she called to him in a hissing whisper.
Amos Goodhare heard her voice and recognised it. It flashed through his mind instantly that it must have been to her that Sep had given the jewels. If he could only get possession of them, the day’s work which had rid him of a troublesome confederate and satisfied his appetite for revenge on two men he hated, would be indeed well done.
He descended the stairs as softly and rapidly as he had mounted them.
“Yes, Deborah, it is I, Rees,” he said, in a whisper which was only just audible in the noise of knocking, both at the front and the back of the house. “Where are you? Give me your hand. You have the jewels?”
“Yes,” she answered, hesitatingly.
“Where are you? where are you?” he repeated impatiently. “Quick; I must be off.”
But he had betrayed himself. Deborah, shocked, alarmed, crept along the wall away from him, uttering no sound. He groped about for her, muttering to himself, until, with a crash, one of the boards of the door fell. By the light which was thus let in, he saw where the girl was, and sprang at her. But she pushed him off with a piercing shriek, avoided nimbly a second attack, and got back to the front door just as it was quivering on its hinges. Goodhare saw that he had no more time to lose.
“Good-bye, my dear; my love to Rees,” he said, as he re-mounted the staircase rapidly, and disappeared from view just as the front-door fell down with a crash on to the rotten flooring, and four policemen rushed in.
“Upstairs, upstairs, he’s escaped upstairs,” panted out Deborah.
Two out of the four men mounted the staircase in pursuit; the other two remained with her and wanted to know what had happened.
“I don’t know myself yet,” she answered. She was still breathless and trembling from her recent encounter with Goodhare, and feverish with anxiety on Rees Pennant’s account.
The officers seemed inclined to look upon her with suspicion. Deborah noticed this, and tried hard to compose herself.
“I want you to go downstairs—into the cellars,” she cried. “They were quarreling there, and one of them ran upstairs past me while I was standing here.”
“And what might you be doing here, miss?” asked one of the men, not uncivilly, but in a tone of cautious inquiry, which woke Deborah suddenly to a full knowledge of the dangerous thing she was doing in letting the servants of the law into this busy little nest of villainy. She had thought only of summoning help for Rees when she fancied that he was physically at the mercy of a savage and unscrupulous man; now she saw that by so doing she had perhaps betrayed Rees into the clutches of the law.
There was no help for it now, however.
“My name is Deborah Audaer,” said she. “I live at Carstow, in Monmouthshire. I will give you any particulars you want later.”
“What was it you said about the cellars, miss?” asked the other constable, as the lady paused.
Deborah turned desperately towards the ladder.
“This way down,” said she briefly, as she led the way herself.
It was quite dark, and the constables were unprovided with any light except matches, which they struck from time to time as they blundered down. It occurred to her that if Rees were unharmed and had failed to take warning by the noise of the policemen’s forcible entrance, she might find a chance of aiding his escape. So she hurried down as fast as she could, and stood with her back to the door of the lower cellar, so as to hide the fire-light which showed through the hole made by the old lock.
“Search this place first, please,” said she.
“I’ll light my lantern,” said one of the men.
The other struck a match, and examined the den as well as he could by its feeble light.
“What’s that in the corner?” said the first man.
Deborah was not paying much heed to their discoveries. She was watching for an opportunity, when their backs were turned, of slipping down into the adjoining cellar to find out what had become of Rees. But an exclamation from both men at once, as they crossed with their heavy tread to the corner indicated, riveted her attention.
“Look here, miss,” called one of them.
Deborah crept forward, prepared for some horrible sight, and thinking still of Rees.
On the damp, muddy floor, with a piece of old and frayed matting wrapped around it, lay the body of a man. As Deborah drew near, the flickering match held by the policeman went out, and while he struck another his companion laid his hand on the lady’s arm with evident suspicion. Deborah did not resent the touch; she stood in a dumb agony of dread.
When the lantern was lighted, she dared not look; the policeman drew her forward.
“Will you besergood as to tell us whether you know the gentleman?”
She glanced down, and utterly unable to restrain herself, almost shrieked:
“Lord St. Austell! Dead! Murdered!”
The men looked at each other and at her. By her tone they knew that the sight was for her a ghastly surprise, and the man who had held her arm at once let it go. Lord St. Austell was a well-known and popular peer, and, looking closer, one of the policemen recognised his face.
“She’s right. The lady’s right, Bill,” said he more respectfully.
And the men looked at each other and at Deborah again. The dead earl’s character was so well-known that their first thought was of an ambush laid, with a handsome woman as decoy.
“Do you know who’s done this, ma’am?” asked one, bluntly.
“Yes, the man who escaped upstairs; his name is Amos Goodhare,” she answered promptly. “But come into the inner cellar. There may be another murdered man lying there,” she cried, rousing herself suddenly out of the numb apathy into which the horrible sight had cast her.
“You go, Fred; I’ll stay here.”
The other nodded and accompanied her to the door of the inner cellar, where Deborah fumbled for a minute with weak, wet fingers.
“Open it,” said she hoarsely.
The man did so, and leapt down at once into the den. The fire was getting low now, but the air was still as hot as a furnace, and there was enough light for him to find his way to the prostrate form of Rees.
“By Jove! Another!” he muttered.
Deborah got down with difficulty, and tottered with swimming brain across the floor.
“Rees, Rees!” she whispered. “Dead, too!”
“No, miss, not quite—this one,” said the policeman, trying to speak re-assuringly, but growing every moment more perplexed by the whole affair. “This poor chap may come round, I think, if he ain’t bled too much. Let’s try to stop the bleeding if we can.”
Scarcely knowing what she did, Deborah lent her aid. Pressing her fingers to the wound, she said imploringly:
“Go and fetch a doctor as quickly as you can, please. It is his only chance.”
“All right, miss,” said the man.
And, quite satisfied that she would not move from the side of the handsome young fellow, he went out at once. Although, in the close, stifling atmosphere of the cellar, absorbed in grief and anxiety of the most bitter kind, Deborah fancied that she passed an hour kneeling by the side of the unconscious man, with her fingers tightly pressing together the sides of the ghastly wound in his chest, it was really not more than seven minutes before the policeman came back with a doctor.
“There’s a gentleman just got into the house from the back, miss,” said the constable. “He doesn’t seem to know anything of what’s been going on, and I haven’t told him, but he asked if there was a lady here, and I told him there was.”
“A gentleman!” echoed Deborah, as she rose from the floor, and staggered, overcome by the stifling heat.
She glanced down at Rees. He was in the doctor’s hands now; she could do no more for him. She was glad to escape out of this horrible den, and she climbed up the ladder to the ground floor without further question. A short, fair man, with a strong sense of his own importance apparent in his face and bearing, but evidently suffering for the time from some deep anxiety, was waiting in the passage. He carried a lamp which Deborah had seen on the table at Rees Pennant’s lodgings, and by its light she recognised the Honorable Charles Cenarth, keeper of the regalia.
“My niece, Marion, followed her father and you to a house in St. Martin’s-lane, and then she drove to my house and brought me here. She was afraid of coming alone, lest he should be angry. And a young man who was hovering about outside showed me the way to this place——”
“Sep Jocelyn,” murmured Deborah.
“And told me he thought my brother had come here. Perhaps you, Miss Audaer, can tell me where Lord St. Austell is.”
Deborah paused. She had no fear of inflicting a very severe wound on this deliberate gentleman by informing him of his elder brother’s death. It was pretty well known that the Honorable Charles looked upon the earl chiefly as the man who stood between him and the title.
“You are Lord St. Austell now,” she said, gently.
He honored the announcement with a start of surprise, but made no show of being deeply affected. There was a pause.
“How was it?” he asked, trying to keep his hands out of the pockets to which they instinctively felt their way.
“He was murdered, I think, by Amos Goodhare,” she answered in a whisper.
“Dear me, how very stupid of him to trust himself with Amos,” said the new earl, fretfully. “Have they caught him yet?”
“Not yet, I think.”
“Then I hope they won’t! I hope to God they won’t! It’s an awkward position, don’t you see? And the fellow does say such unpleasant things.”
Deborah was disgusted. But she had something of importance to say to this phlegmatic gentleman, and it was perhaps fortunate in one way that he was unemotional.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” she said.
He pricked up his ears. “A favor! It’s of no use asking favors of me, Miss Audaer. I’m not my unfortunate brother, you know,” he said hastily.
“You need not trouble yourself on that point. Nobody is likely to mistake you for him.”
“So much the better. I’m a poor man. The estates are very heavily encumbered, owing to my unhappy brother’s extravagance, his lamentable extravagance, I repeat. So that it is quite out of my power to grant favors—quite.”
“Even when they put money into your pocket?” said Deborah, who thought he deserved this plain-speaking.
He was not in the least offended.
“Tell me what it is?” said he at once.
At that moment the noise of a scuffle and men’s cries, “I’ve got you, my lad.” “Hold him, Jim!” in the upper part of the house reached their ears.
“They’ve caught him!” cried Deborah, with excitement.
The new Lord Austell gave an exclamation of impatience.
“Well, well, tell me at once what you want, before we are interrupted.”
Deborah had known how to gain the ear of the generous nobleman.
Thenew Earl of St. Austell was not the man to lose any opportunity of making a good bargain. Deborah Audaer had promised to ask him a favor which should put money in his pocket, and although he was puzzled by the offer, he was so desperately anxious to hear it that the news of the capture of his brother’s supposed murderer came to him only as a tiresome interruption.
“Well, well, this favor you want of me, what is it?” he repeated, impatiently. “Of course, Miss Audaer, you know I am only too happy at any time to——”
“Thank you, yes, of course,” answered Deborah, with one eye upon him and one upon the staircase, as the sounds of voices and scuffling seemed to subside a little. “I want to ask you if you will forgive any injuries you or poor Lord St. Austell may have received from two men who were merely the tools of Amos Goodhare. I can convince you that they had nothing to do with his murder; in fact, one of them has been stabbed by Amos so severely that I am afraid he may not recover. Will you promise this?” A pause, during which Charles Cenarth looked doubtfully at the candle. “I should not have had to ask your brother twice,” she added, with a touch of dry irony.
“And where is the advantage this would bring to me?” asked he, doubtfully.
“I could restore to you the lost jewels. The setting I believe, is gone beyond recovery.”
He looked at her as if he could scarcely believe his ears.
“Restore the jewels!” he repeated, hardly daring to utter the words aloud. Then he added with an abrupt change of tone: “If you know where they are you are bound to give them up.”
“Yes, so I am—to the police,” said Deborah, quietly.
He looked at her askance, with much mistrust. This was a disagreeably sharp young woman.
“Offenders against the law ought to be punished!” he said severely. “I am not the man to compound a felony.”
“Then, your lordship, I am at liberty to make known whatever I have learnt to the police.”
“And give up these people you are so anxious to shield?”
“No; persuade them to turn Queen’s evidence.”
He began to move about impatiently.
“Have it your own way, then, and for goodness sake let me know where the jewels are, and get this business over.”
“You give me your word of honor that you will not only refrain from taking proceedings against any man but the murderer, but you will help to shield the others from the effects of their own folly?”
“And wickedness,” added the earl, severely.
“And wickedness.”
“You are asking a great deal,” said the new Lord St. Austell, with a wry face. “Do you know the reputation I bear?”
Deborah did. It was that of a close-fisted and sanctimonious prig.
“Well, your lordship, you have only to say no, and I will set about getting these unfortunate men out of their scrape in another way.”
She turned away impatiently. The noise of a heavy tramp of feet was heard coming down the stairs. The new earl tapped her arm petulantly.
“I agree! I agree! I give my word of honor!” he mumbled, “And now get me the jewels as fast as you can,” he continued, in a burst of eagerness.
Deborah brought out from under her cloak the two small flat paper parcels which Sep had given her, and placed them in the earl’s hands. He tore one of them open and quickly examined the contents. By his little murmur, by his very attitude, she saw that she need have no further fear for Rees or Sep. Indeed, the recovery of the jewels meant for him, social salvation. He buttoned them up hastily under his coat, hugging as it were himself and them as he did so. He had not time to repent having got them back by a bargain instead of by cheaper strategy, when Amos Goodhare, secured at last, was forced down the stairs by his captors with no great gentleness, and brought face to face with the brother of the man he had murdered.
He had been seized by the policemen just as he was endeavoring to escape into the next house, by scrambling from window to window; he had got loose again, had squeezed through a trap-door on to the roof, and after a chase along the leads, rendered more exciting by their dangerously ruinous condition, he had been caught, dragged back, handcuffed, and finally brought down the staircase by which he had ascended.
“Who’s this?” said one of the policemen roughly, as he looked the new earl up and down without apparently, having his suspicions allayed by any dignity in the little man’s appearance.
“My brother,” said Amos promptly.
“I am Charles Cenarth. It is my brother who has been murdered.”
“Oh, ho! You don’t acknowledge your relationship to me, then,” said Goodhare in a mocking tone. “That’s ungrateful, when I’ve done for you what you’d never have dared to do for yourself,” he added, darting forward to whisper into the little man’s unwilling ear.
“This gentleman is connected with my family and I’m sure he will be able to give a perfectly satisfactory account of himself,” said his frightened kinsman nervously.
“Hope so, I’m sure,” said one of the policemen drily.
“Could you not let him go?” suggested the new earl uneasily.
“No, sir; I’m afraid we couldn’t see our way to it. Gentlemen found running away in a house where a murder has been committed isn’t let off quite so easy.”
“Murder! Who said there was a murder?”
The man pointed to the constable who had brought the doctor to Rees.
“This man and the young lady there found the body.”
“The young lady,” cried Goodhare mockingly. “The young lady’s word isn’t worth much. If you take her to the station and have her searched, you will find on her a quantity of jewels of great value, stolen from the Regalia at the Tower.”
Evidently some rumor of the theft, quiet as the matter had been kept, had reached the ears of the force. For they looked at each other, and one of them stepped quickly forward, with his hand raised, towards Deborah. To her great surprise, the decorous Charles Cenarth came to the rescue with a deliberate and roundly uttered falsehood.
“I don’t know what the prisoner hopes to gain by this ridiculous charge against a young lady,” he said, gravely. “But as I happen to be Keeper of the Regalia, no one can prove better than I that she cannot be in possession of any of the crown jewels, as none of the crown jewels have ever been stolen.”
“Ah, ah! Very good! Very good, indeed, brother Charles,” said Goodhare, mockingly.
The police officers said nothing to all this. They began to “smell a rat,” however; for if there had been nothing in the rumored theft, what should two such prodigious swells as the earl and his brother do poking about in this thieves’ den, with such disastrous results for one of them? As there was nothing to be got by contradicting the “swell’s” assertion, the man who had approached Deborah stepped back respectfully.
“Come on,” said he to his companions, “we’ll make sure of this one, anyhow.”
And he looked at Goodhare, who had subsided into silence.
“There’s another of ’em downstairs, ain’t there?” asked one of the others.
“He’s done for, I think.”
But at that moment there came up from the cellar the doctor and the fourth policeman, supporting between them the weak and almost helpless Rees Pennant, who tried feebly to walk, but was scarcely able to do more then drag his feet limply after him.
“This man had nothing to do with the murder,” said Deborah hastily, glancing in fear towards Amos Goodhare as she laid her hand on one of Rees’s helpless arms.
“No, that is right enough,” said Goodhare at once, to Deborah’s surprise. “He had nothing to do with it.”
There was a malicious expression on the old scoundrel’s face which did not accord with the words. The policemen, though not at all satisfied as to the share Rees Pennant and Deborah had taken in this mysterious affair, contented themselves with taking their names and the address at Carstow which the young lady gave them, on Charles Cenarth’s offering to go to the police-station and to become security for their appearance when they should be wanted. For it was apparent to everyone that the young man’s injuries were of a dangerous, if not fatal description.
On learning from the questions of the constables how important a factor her own evidence against Goodhare would be, poor Deborah could not suppress a little cry of horror. Strong as were her mistrust and dislike of the ex-librarian, the thought that it might be her words which would convict him was so terrible that, as he passed her on his way out, she gave him a look as if to implore his forgiveness.
Amos Goodhare, who, now that he was caught, was very quiet and subdued, stopped short with a low cry of pain as soon as the constables who had him in charge attempted to lead him forward.
“I am hurt,” he said, in a low voice. “One of you infernal ruffians must have done it when you caught me, two men against one. Let the doctor see my ankle, my right ankle—I think I have sprained it.”
With the constables’ help he limped back to the bottom stair and sat down. While the men stood back to allow the doctor to examine the limb he declared to be injured, and Deborah reluctantly held the lamp, Amos looked up malevolently into her face.
“Don’t apologise, Miss Audaer, for any injury your evidence might do me?” he said in a rapid whisper. “By giving you back your lover, Rees Pennant, now that I have done with him, I show you that I bear no malice.”
“Thank you,” said she quietly. “I appreciate your kindness.”
“I hope you may find a young scoundrel more to your taste than an old one.”
Deborah made no answer. The doctor having declared that there was no sign of a broken or displaced bone, and that the pain Amos spoke of must be the result of a slight sprain, he was helped on to his feet again, and led out of the house by his captors, followed by Charles Cenarth, who was to accompany them to the police station.
Deborah then asked the doctor if it would be safe to take Rees as far as Carstow that night. He answered with a decided negative. As she stood wondering what she should do with him, a hand was laid on her arm, and turning, she saw Lady Marion Cenarth, lean, haggard, despairing. She had crept into the house after her uncle, and remained in a distant corner, unseen in the darkness, unheard amid the general excitement.
“Bring him to my aunt’s,” she whispered imploringly. “Not Mrs. Charles Cenarth, but an aunt of my mother’s. She would take charge of him, I know. And if I could be of any use in nursing him—” she added piteously, imploringly. “Do let me. Oh! do let me,” she continued in a heart-broken tone. “Let him love you, and marry you—I don’t care. Only don’t take him quite away—until he is well.”
Deborah was touched. She took the girl’s hand and answered very gently:
“I don’t want to take him away from you. I shall be very glad if your aunt will take him in for a little while.”
So Rees was half-led, half-carried out of the house and along the little court, and lifted into a cab, in which he and Deborah and the faithful Marion were driven slowly as far as Hill street, where old Lady Susan Mortimer lived. As Lady Marion had prophesied, they were all made welcome by the little old lady, who was of a highly sentimental turn of mind, and took her grandniece’s part heartily against the girl’s more worldly-minded parents. She sent at once for her own doctor, and in the meantime had Rees carried into the best bed-room, a large and gloomy chamber, with a funereal four-post bedstead of carved wood, with hangings darkened by age.
When the young fellow had been laid carefully on this sombre couch, Deborah, who saw that he would have no lack of attention, attempted to retire from the bedside. But Rees, who had been lying with closed eyes, opened them suddenly to say:
“Where are you going, Deborah?”
“I’m going back to Carstow to tell mamma you are all right. She will be anxious.”
He half raised himself feebly.
“Very well, then, I shall come with you,” he whispered obstinately. “I’m not going to stay here without you.”
“Nonsense, Rees. You mustn’t be ungrateful. It would kill you to travel to-night.”
In the meantime, poor, meek-spirited Lady Marion had begged her great-aunt to invite Deborah to stay.
“He wants her, you see,” she added pitifully.
So little Lady Susan trotted forward and said that if Miss Audaer would stay and help to nurse Rees she should be very pleased. And Deborah, with some reluctance, had to yield.
Deborahwas saved the pain of giving evidence against Amos Goodhare, for that gentleman, having by his ruse of a sprained ankle, put the policemen in whose charge he was a little off their guard, managed to escape from their guardianship before they got to the end of the court, and by means of the London fog which had helped him so much already, got away, doubled on his pursuers, and took refuge, with great astuteness, in the very house in which he had been caught, even before the men who were now in charge of the body of the murdered man had left the building with their burden.
Amos was never caught; indeed, the authorities seemed rather slack in his pursuit; and as he had the astuteness to leave the country immediately, nothing more was ever heard of him until two years later, when he died in Paris, in abject poverty.
The sensational death of Lord St. Austell was never fully explained to the public. As the recovered crown jewels were immediately re-set and restored to their places among the rest, the temporary loss of them was never widely known, and the country bumpkins who go to the Tower to stare at the treasures, which many Londoners have never seen, are still as much impressed as ever by the antiquity of the gold of King Edward’s crown. So that the murder of the earl was generally believed to have been merely the sequel to a commonplace affair of robbery, affected by means of a decoy.
Rees and Sep also got off much more easily than they deserved, the whole affair having died out of the public mind before the former was in a fit condition to be moved from Lady Susan’s house to his mother’s home in Carstow. But Rees was injured for life. No physician could give him hopes of more than a sickly existence, with constant danger of the re-opening of the wound. So much his excesses of the past year had done to undermine a fine constitution. And another wound was in store for him.
Sep crawled back one cool April evening, shivering, miserable, and half crazy, from want on the one hand, and a guilty conscience on the other, to his old aunt at Carstow, who took him in and nursed and tended him with unquestioning goodness. But he was never the same man again. Without suffering evidently from impaired reason, he fell into a lethargic state, and was subject for the few remaining years of his life to fits of nervous depression which nothing could cure. One sign of the change in him was that he hated the sight of Rees, and would turn hurriedly out of his way as soon as his formerly beloved companion came in sight.
Rees, in spite of his wound, took things more easily, and was easily nursed back, by the adoration of his mother and of Lady Marion, into nearly his old belief in himself. Lady Marion, whose devotion was, if possible, more pronounced than ever, returned to Llancader as soon as he went back to Carstow, in order to be as near to him as possible. His evident preference for Deborah did not disconcert her; she was resigned to everything but losing sight of him, and accepted any small crumbs of gratitude and kindness which he chose to throw to her with humble joy.
Partly, perhaps, because Deborah showed no particular devotion, but more of a kindly and even contemptuous pity in her ministrations to his comfort, Rees showed for her something nearer to genuine affection than he had ever showed to a girl before. Nothing was done rightly for him except by her; and as Mrs. Pennant had not resolution enough to interfere with any caprice of her darling boy’s, the young girl was in danger of losing her health by the close confinement his demands upon her care involved.
At last Godwin, whose disgust was unbounded at the fuss made over the returned prodigal, stepped in to say a necessary word for Deborah. Since his brother’s arrival, Godwin had been on very distant terms with her, having given Rees a colder welcome than she thought right. They had, therefore, not held any conversation together except of the most formal kind, when, finding, an one of his fortnightly visits, that she began to look pale and dull-eyed, he ordered her out for a walk in such an angry and peremptory tone that his mother backed up his command with coaxing words of entreaty.
“Yes, dear, go, do go,” said the old lady, who had now almost recovered from her paralytic stroke, but who had been, since that misfortune, more afraid of masculine wrath than ever. “Godwin is quite right. You do want a walk. Rees will let you go, I’m sure; he’s never selfish.”
The poor old lady really believed this; and Godwin’s grunt on hearing her ingenuous remark was not likely to undeceive her.
Rees, who was still confined a great deal to the house, gave an unwilling consent to Deborah’s going out “for an hour.”
“Only for an hour, mind,” he added, as she went out of the room. “I shan’t drink my tea unless you make it. I don’t want to be poisoned.”
“All right, Rees, only an hour,” sang out Deborah good-humoredly, as Godwin closed the door for her.
As soon as he had done so, Godwin walked over abruptly to the armchair in which Rees was leaning back.
“Do you know that you ought to be ashamed of yourself not to give more thought to that girl’s comfort?” he said, in what both Rees and his mother considered a cruelly sharp tone. “How is she to keep her health if she is stuck in the house all day attending to your fads?”
“Godwin, Godwin,” remonstrated Mrs. Pennant, shocked beyond measure at this irreverent treatment of her divinity, “you must not speak like that to our dear Rees! He knows there is nothing we would not, any of us, gladly do to help him to get well, and to wile away the tedious hours before he does get well.”
“You don’t quite seem to understand, Godwin, my boy,” said Rees, with a touch of haughtiness, holding up his hand languidly to stop his mother. “I should be the last man in the world to take advantage of any girl’s devotion to me. I am going to marry Deborah.”
“Indeed! Well it’s very good of you, I must say,” said Godwin, with a bitterly ironical tone. “Of course, then, it’s much easier for her to be a slave to your whims, since she knows it is to be for life!”
“Godwin, Godwin, my poor darling will be ill again if you speak so and excite him,” wailed the mother.
“Serve him right. I never heard of such a pitiful sham martyr in my life,” said Godwin, shortly; and not daring to trust himself to deliver such a lecture as he had in his mind, he went quickly out of the room, leaving Mrs. Pennant to sob on her darling’s neck, and to assure him that he must forget every word of what his brother had so cruelly said.
“Remember, Rees dear,” she went on tenderly, “he only speaks like that because he wanted to marry Deborah himself. But, of course, she preferred my own boy, my darling eldest son.”
And she passed tremulous fingers through his curly hair.
“Have you told her yet that you mean to marry her?”
“Not yet, mother. I think I will to-night, after what that young cub said.”
“Do, dearest. I suppose she knows what you mean to say to her; but she’s been really very good and devoted to you, so why should you defer the pleasure it will give her?”
“All right, dear mother, I’ll speak to her to-night—that is, if she’s not too late to make my tea,” he added, with the petulance of a spoilt child.
Meanwhile, Deborah, unmindful of the honor which was in store for her, was revelling in the fresh, sweet air of a spring afternoon. After a moment’s debate as to where she should go, she turned her steps towards the river, crossed the bridge, and almost ran down to the meadow where, twenty months ago, the three confederates had found the second entrance to the underground passage.
She wandered along the river bank, looking now at the grey towers of the castle, and now at the pale green foliage which sparsely covered the trees on the opposite bank, when suddenly she was startled by two rapid steps behind her and a sharp touch, which was almost a light blow, on her shoulder.
Turning quickly, she saw Godwin, who looked angry and harassed. He stopped short, so she had to do the same.
“So you’re to be my sister-in-law,” he said, abruptly.
“Well?” said Deborah, quietly.
“I wish you joy of your post as wife to such a man as Rees has become.”
“Is that kind of you?”
“I can’t help it. I must say what I think for once. I’ll never mention the subject again. If you like to be the slave of a man who hasn’t it in him to care for you, what right have I to object?”
“What right, indeed,” said Deborah.
“There, that’s enough. I didn’t know whether you, being a woman, could understand what a wreck, morally even more than physically, that unfortunate lad has become. So I thought I ought to warn you. Of course, I find it is useless; I might have known it would be.”
“It is indeed,” said she, in a peculiar tone.
“Of course, you think I am speaking from a selfish motive. But I am not. I gave up all hopes of you as soon as I knew that Rees was coming back.”
“And devoted your attentions to the second Miss Brownlow?” asked Deborah, rather archly.
“No, that was all nonsense. I never spoke to the girl in my life, except to offer her a cup of tea,” said Godwin, despondently.
“Didn’t you?” asked Deborah slowly.
“No. Unlucky beggar that I am, I never can look at any other woman but you, except to find fault with her. I suppose it will be different when you are married. I hope so.”
“And I hope not,” said Deborah, laughing gaily.
Godwin looked at her with a rather puzzled expression.
“Don’t you remember telling me,” said she, saucily, “that a woman was always sorry to lose an admirer? How much more must this be the case, then, when that admirer is her own husband!”
Godwin stared at her in bewilderment. Deborah looked across at the castle.
“What on earthdoyou mean?” asked he, at last, slowly.
“Find out,” she answered, making the words come in to a tune she was humming.
“Aren’t you going to marry Rees?” asked he, in a loud and stolid tone.
“Not if he were an emperor or an angel,” answered she, simply.
Godwin looked at her for a few moments as if he scarcely dared to take in the meaning of the situation.
“Then you’ll have to marry me,” said he decidedly.
“ ‘Yes, if you please, kind sir, she said,’ ” answered Deborah, with a smile and a deep curtsey.
“But you don’t love me,” whispered Godwin, whose voice had suddenly broken and grown husky.
“Not more than I have done for the last six months. But then that’s a good deal,” added Deborah below her breath.
Rees Pennant displayed the rage of a spoilt child thwarted when, on the return of Godwin and Deborah together, the former announced their engagement. He stormed all that evening at the fickleness and insincerity of women, to a sympathetic accompaniment from his mother, who never quite forgave Deborah for what she called “jilting poor Rees.”
Still in a tumult of angry pique, Rees straightway proposed next day to Lady Marion Cenarth, who accepted him with rapture. He duly married her before many weeks were over, in spite of the opposition of her relations. It was a fate much too good for him, but his punishment lay in the fact that he never understood this, but really believed that the abject sort of happiness Lady Marion found in ministering to his lightest caprice was a more than ample recompense for any woman’s devotion.
Godwin, whose services by this time had proved valuable, was, within a few months of his marriage to Deborah, removed to Carstow, to take charge of the large estates in that neighborhood, where they both continued to lead the quiet life they liked best.
And so a second romance, of a brighter cast than the first, was ended in the shadow of the old grey castle walls.
THE END.
Florence Warden was the pseudonym of Florence Alice (Price) James.
The cover image is taken from the Ward & Downey edition (London, 1889).
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g.armchair/arm-chair, good-humoredly/good humoredly, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Add TOC.
Punctuation: missing periods, sentences ending with commas/colons, quotation mark pairings, etc.
[Chapter I]
Change “whisperedK ate, glancing towards the dozing French” towhispered Kate.
“Godwin, andHarvey—yes, and Rees too, whatever Marion” toHervey.
“given up, for its draughtiness, to thebatand the mice” tobats.
“briefly described where and how she had foundhlm” tohim.
[Chapter II]
“mile of the castle that hedid’ntknow, they said” todidn’t.
[Chapter IV]
“The fact was that AmosGooodhare, having devoted” toGoodhare.
[Chapter V]
“growl of passionate,hungerearnestness in the elder man’s hawk eyes” tohungry.
“But the elder man hadappearentlydecided that to argue” toapparently.
“by himself with slow steps and anususuallyreflective manner” tounusually.
“He drew back hastily into the shadow of thestrees” totrees.
[Chapter VII]
“BntI can come and see you at the same place to-morrow” toBut.
[Chapter VIII]
“under the fire of Goodhare’sdicourses, melted quite away” todiscourses.
“But at heart he wasblaseand cynical, with a surprised feeling” toblasé.
[Chapter IX]
“before dinner, brushingRee’smacintosh afterwards” toRees’s.
“aguantfigure shivering in the damp, was waiting” togaunt.
“his arm round her in hisfacinatinglyaffectionate way” tofascinatingly.
[Chapter X]
“Skakingoff the stupor, which again seemed to be overpowering” toShaking.
(“You need not comeagian,” he said. “But I shall come here…) toagain.
[Chapter XI]
“to scale the outer wall of thecaslewith the help of the ivy” tocastle.
“his tone which made her blushcrimsom, and feel afraid” tocrimson.
[Chapter XIV]
“Rees stamped his foot, and said haughtily;” change semicolon to colon.
“and Idid’ntknow whether you had yet fallen a victim” todidn’t.
“But now I must say good-bye to you, Mr Goodhare” add period afterMr.
[Chapter XV]
(“Nosnchluck as that you have give up thinking about him) tosuch.
[Chapter XVII]
“a good look to right and left hadas uredthe three men” toassured.
“And with muchapparantreluctance, part of which was real” toapparent.
[Chapter XIX]
(“Is’ntthat rather a low point of view to look at…) toIsn’t.
[Chapter XX]
(“Bntyou are quite wrong if you think——”) toBut.
[Chapter XXI]
“Deporahwas still holding his sleeve with no uncertain” toDeborah.
[Chapter XXII]
“what interest have I in the matter exceptyour’sand Rees” toyours.
“You were sent sent away with the jewels to dispose of them” delete onesent.
[Chapter XXIII]
“It would not be safe for you to go near himhow” tonow.
(“A woman!” he growled out. “I’ll tear the heart out ofhe.”) toher.
[Chapter XXIV.]
“hearing the tramp of footsteps on the pavementontside” tooutside.
[Chapter XXV]
(“One of you infernal ruffiansmnsthave done it…) tomust.
[End of text]