We have now to return to Mr. Strange. That eminent detective was, to tell the truth, somewhat puzzled by his interview with Sir Karl Andinnian, held in the road; thrown, so to say, slightly on his beam ends. The earnest assurances of Sir Karl--that the individual he had been suspecting was the agent Smith, and that there was not, and could not be, any gentleman residing at the Maze--had made their due impression, for he saw that Sir Karl was a man whose word might be trusted. At the same time he detected, or thought he detected, an undue eagerness on Sir Karl's part to impress this upon him; an eagerness which the matter itself did not justify, unless Sir Karl had a private and personal motive for it. Musing on this, Mr. Strange had continued to walk about that evening instead of going on to his lodgings; and when Miss Blake surprised him underneath the trees at the Maze gate--or, rather, surprised herself by finding him there--he had not sought the spot to watch the gate, but as a shelter of seclusion while he thought. The stealthy entrance of Sir Karl Andinnian with a key taken from his pocket, and the whispered communication from Miss Blake, threw altogether another light upon the matter, and served to show what Sir Karl's personal motive might be. According to that lady's hints, Sir Karl was in the habit of stealing into the Maze, and that it was no one but Sir Karl himself who had been seen by Nurse Chaffen.
Mr. Detective Strange could not conceal from his acute brain that, if this were true, his own case was almost as good as disposed of, and he might prepare to go back to town. Salter, the prey he was patiently searching out, was at the Maze or nowhere--for Mr. Strange had turned the rest of the locality inside out, and knew that it contained no trace of him. If the gentleman in the evening dress, seen by Nurse Chaffen, was Sir Karl Andinnian, it could not have been Philip Salter: and, as his sole motive for suspecting the Maze was that worthy woman's account of him she had seen, why the grounds of suspicion seemed slipping from under him.
He thought it out well that night. Well and thoroughly. The tale was certainly likely and plausible. Sir Karl Andinnian did not appear to be one who would embark on this kind of private expedition; but, as the detective said to himself, one could not answer for one's own brother. Put it down as being Sir Karl that the woman saw, why then the mystery of her not having seen him again was at an end: for while she was there Sir Karl would not be likely to go to the Maze and show himself a second time.
The more Mr. Strange thought it out, the further reason he found for suspecting that this must be the true state of the case. It did not please him. Clear the Maze of all suspicion as to Salter, and it would become evident that they had been misled, and that so much valuable time had been wasted. He should have to go back to Scotland Yard and report the failure. Considering that he had latterly been furnishing reports of the prey being found and as good as in his hands, the prospect was mortifying. This would be the second consecutive case in which he had signally failed.
But it was by no means Mr. Strange's intention to take the failure for granted. He was too wary a detective to do that without seeking for proof, and he had not done with Foxwood yet. The first person he must see was Mrs. Chaffen.
Somewhat weary with his night reflections and not feeling quite so refreshed as he ought, for the thing had kept him awake till morning, Mr. Strange sat down to his breakfast languidly. Watchful Mrs. Jinks, who patronized her easy lodger and was allowed to visit his tea, and sugar, and butter, and cheese with impunity, observed this as she whipped off the cover from a dish of mushrooms that looked as though it might tempt an anchorite.
"You've got a headache this morning, Mr. Strange, sir. Is it bad?"
"Oh, very bad," said Mr. Strange, who did not forget to keep up his rôle of delicate health as occasion afforded opportunity.
"What things them headaches are!" deplored Mrs. Jinks. "Nobody knows whence they come nor how to drive 'em away. Betsey Chaffen was nursing a patient in the spring, who'd had bilious fever and rheumatis combined; and to hear what she said about that poor dear old gentleman's head----"
"By the way, how is Mrs. Chaffen?" interrupted Mr. Strange, with scant ceremony, and no regard to the old gentleman's head. "I have not seen her lately."
"She was here a day or two ago, sir; down in my kitchen. As to how she is, she's as strong as need be: which it's thanks to you for inquiring.Shenever has nothing the matter with her."
"Is she out nursing?"
"Not now. She expects to be called out soon, and is waiting at home for it."
"Where is her home?"
"Down Foxglove Lane, sir, turning off by Mr. Sumnor's church. Bull, the stonemason, lives in the end house there, and she have lodged with 'em for years. Bull tells her in joke sometimes that some of 'em ought to be took ill, with such a nurse as her in the house. Which they never are, for it's as healthy a spot as any in Foxwood."
Mr. Strange had a knack of politely putting an end to his landlady's gossip when he pleased, and of sending her away. He did so now: and the widow transferred herself and her attentions to Mr. Cattacomb's parlour.
People must hold spring and autumn cleanings, or where would their carpets and curtains bel Mrs. Chaffen, though occupying but one humble room (with a choice piece of furniture in it that was called a "bureau" by day, and was a bed by night) was not exempt from the general sanitary obligations. Mrs. Bull considered that she instituted these periodical bouts of scrubbing oftener than there was occasion for: but Betsey Chaffen liked to take care of her furniture--which was her own--and was moreover a cleanly woman.
On this self-same morning she was in the thick of it: her gown turned up about her waist, her hands and arms bare to the elbow, plunged into a bucket of soapsuds, herself on her knees, and the furniture all heaped together on the top of the shut-up bureau in the corner, when one of the young Bulls came in with the astounding news that a gentleman was asking for her.
"Goodness bless me!" cried the poor woman, turning cold all over, "it can't be that I'm fetched out, can it, Sam?--and me just in the middle of all this mess!"
"He said, was Mrs. Chaffen at home, and could he see her," replied Sam. "He's a waiting outside:"
Mrs. Chaffen sat back on her heels, one hand resting on the bucket, the other grasping the wet scrubbing-brush, and her face the very picture of consternation as she stared at the boy. She had believed herself free for a full week to come.
"Is it Mr. Henley himself, Sam?"
"It ain't Mr. Henley at all," said Sam. "It's the gentleman what's staying at Mrs. Jinks's."
"What the plague brings him here this morning of all others, when I've got the floor in a sop and not a chair to ask him to set down upon!" cried the woman, relieved of her great fear, but vexed nevertheless to be interrupted in her work, and believing the intruder to be Mr. Cattacomb, come on one of his pastoral visits: for that excellent divine made no scruple, in his zeal, of looking in occasionally on Mr. Sumnor's flock as well as his own. "Parsons be frightful bothers sometimes!"
"'Tain't the parson; it's the t'other one?" said Sam Bull.
Mrs. Chaffen rose from her knees, stepped gingerly across the wet floor, and took a peep through the window. There she saw Mr. Strange in the centre of a tribe of young Bulls, dividing among them a piece of lettered gingerbread. Sam, afraid of not coming in for his share of the letters, bolted out of the room.
"Ask the gentleman if he'll be pleased to step in, Sam, and to excuse the litter," she called after the boy. "I don't mindhim," she mentally added, seizing upon a mop to mop the wet off the floor, and then letting down her gown, "and he must want something particular of me; but I'd not have cared to stand Cattakin's preaching this busy morning."
Mr. Strange came in in his pleasant way, admiring everything, from the room to the bucket, and assuring her he rather preferred wet floors to dry ones. While she was reaching him a chair and dusting it with her damp apron, he held out his hand, pointing to where the cuts had been.
"Look here, Mrs. Chaffen. I have been thinking of coming to you this day or two past, but fancied I might see you in Paradise Row, for I'd rather have your opinion than a doctor's at any time. The hand has healed, you see."
"Yes, sir; it looks beautiful."
"But I am not sure that it has healed properly, though it may look 'beautiful,'" he rejoined. "Feel this middle cut. Here; just on the seam."
Mrs. Chaffen rubbed her fingers on the same check apron, and then passed them gently over the place he spoke of. "What do you feel?" he asked.
"Well, sir, it feels a little hard, and there seems to be a kind of knot," she said, still examining the place.
"Precisely so. There's a stiffness about it that I don't altogether like, and now and then it has a kind of a prickly sensation. What I have been fancying is, that a bit of glass may possibly be in it still."
But Mrs. Chaffen did not think so. In her professional capacity she talked nearly as learnedly as a doctor could have talked, though not using quite the same words. Her opinion was that if glass had remained in the hand it would not have healed: she believed that Mr. Strange had only to let it alone and have a little patience, and the symptoms he spoke of would go away.
It is not at all improbable that this opinion was Mr. Strange's own; but he thanked her and said he would abide by her advice, and gave her a little more gentle flattery. Then he sat down in the chair she had dusted, as if he meant to remain for the day, in spite of the disorder of affairs and the damp floor, and entered on a course of indiscriminate gossip. Mrs. Chaffen liked to get on quickly with her work, but she liked gossip better; no matter how busy she might be, a dish ofthatnever came amiss; and she put her back against another chair and folded her bare arms in her apron, and gossiped back again.
In a smooth and natural manner, apparently without intent, the conversation presently turned upon the gentleman (or ghost) Mrs. Chaffen had seen at the Maze. It was a theme she had not tired of yet.
"Now you come to talk of that," cried the detective, "do you know what idea has occurred to me upon the point, Mrs. Chaffen? I think the gentleman you saw may have been Sir Karl Andinnian."
Nurse Chaffen, contrary to her usual habit, did not immediately reply, but seemed to fall into thought.
"Was it Sir Karl?"
"Well now that's a odd thing!" she broke forth at last. "Miss Blake asked me the very same question, sir--was it Sir Karl Andinnian?"
"Oh, did she. When?"
"When we had been talking of the thing in your rooms, sir--that time that I had been a dressing of your hand. In going down stairs, somebody pulled me, all mysterious like, into the Reverend Cattakin's parlour: I found it was Miss Blake, and she began asking me what the gentleman looked like and whether it was not Sir Karl."
"And was it Sir Karl?"
"Being took by surprise in that way," went on Mrs. Chaffen, disregarding the question, "I answered Miss Blake that I had not had enough time to notice the gentleman and could not say whether he was like Sir Karl or not. Not having reflected upon it then, I spoke promiscuous, you see sir, on the spur of the moment."
"And was it Sir Karl?" repeated Mr. Strange. "Now that you have had time to reflect upon it, is that the conclusion you come to?"
"No, sir; just the opposite. A minute or two afterwards, if I'd only waited, I could have told Miss Blake that it was not Sir Karl. I couldn't say who it was, but 'twas not him."
This assertion was so contrary to the theory Mr. Strange had been privately establishing that it took him somewhat by surprise.
"Why are you enabled to say surely it was not Sir Karl?" he questioned, laughing lightly, as if the matter amused him.
"Because, sir, the gentleman was taller than Sir Karl. And, when I came to think of it, I distinctly saw that he had short hair, either lightish or grayish: Sir Karl's hair is a beautiful wavy brown, and he wears it rather long."
"Twilight is very deceptive," remarked Mr. Strange.
"No doubt of that, sir: but there was enough light coming in through the passage windows for me to see what I have said. I am quite positive it was not Sir Karl Andinnian."
"Would you swear it was not?"
"No, sir, I'd not swear it: swearing's a ticklish thing: but I am none the less sure. Mr. Strange, it was not Sir Karlfor certain," she added impressively. "The gentleman was taller than Sir Karl and had a bigger kind of figure, broader shoulders like, and it rather struck me at the time that he limped in his walk. That I couldn't hold to, however."
"Just the description of what Salter would most likely be now," mused the detective, his doubts veering about uncomfortably. "He would have a limp, or something worse, after that escapade out of the railway carriage."
"Well, if you are so sure about it, Mrs. Chaffen, I suppose it could not have been Sir Karl."
"I can trust my sight, sir, and Iamsure. What ever could have give rise to the thought that it was Sir Karl?" continued she, after a moment's pause.
"Why, you must know, Mrs. Chaffen, that Sir Karl Andinnian is the only man in Foxwood who is likely to put on evening dress as a rule. And being a neighbour of Mrs. Grey's and her landlord also, it was not so very improbable he should have called in, don't you see?"
Thus enlightened, Mrs. Chaffen no longer wondered how the surmise had arisen. She reiterated her assertion that it was not Sir Karl; and Mr. Strange, gliding into the important question of soda for cleaning boards, versus soap, presently took an affable leave.
There he was, walking back again, his thoughts almost as uncertain as the wind. Was Miss Blake's theory right, or was this woman's? If the latter, and the man was in truth such as she described him, taller and broader than Sir Karl, why then he could, after all, have staked his life upon the Maze being Salter's place of concealment. What if both were right? It might be. Sir Karl might be paying these stealthy visits to Mrs. Grey, and yet be totally ignorant that any such person as Salter was at the Maze. They would hardly dare to tell him; and Salter would take care to conceal himself when Sir Karl was there. At any rate, he--Mr. Strange--must try and put the matter to rest with all speed, one way or the other. Perhaps, however, that resolution was more easy to make than to carry out. As a preliminary step he took a walk to the police station at Basham, and was seen in the street there by Sir Karl Andinnian.
The Maze, in all its ordinary quietness, was lying at rest under the midday sun. That is, as regards outward and visible rest: of inward rest, the rest that diffuses peace in the heart, there was but little. It was the day following the expedition of Mr. Strange to the house of Bull the stonemason.
Mrs. Grey's baby was lying in its cot. Mrs. Grey, who had been hushing it to sleep, prepared to change her morning wrapper for the gown she would wear during the day. A bouquet of fresh-cut flowers lay on the dressing-table, and the chamber window stood open to the free, fresh air. Ann Hopley was in the scullery below, peeling the potatoes for dinner, and the old man servant was out somewhere over his work. As the woman threw the last potato into the pan, there came a gentle ring at the gate bell. She turned round and looked at the clock in the kitchen.
"Who's that, I wonder? It's too early for the bread. Any way, you'll wait till I've got my potatoes on, whoever you may be," concluded she, addressing the unknown intruder.
The saucepan on, she went forth. At the gate stood an inoffensive-looking young man with a large letter or folded parchment in his hand.
"What do you want?" asked Ann Hopley.
"Is this the Maze?"
"Yes."
"Does a lady named Grey live here?"
"Yes."
"Then I've got to leave this for her, please."
Taking the key from her pocket, Ann Hopley unsuspiciously opened the gate, and held forth her hand to take the parchment. Instead of giving it to her, the man pushed past, inside; and, to Ann Hopley's horror, Mr. Strange and a policeman suddenly appeared, and followed him. She would have closed the gate upon them; and she made a kind of frantic effort to do so: but one woman cannot effect much against three determined men.
"You can shut it now," said Mr. Strange, when they were inside. "Don't be alarmed, my good woman: we have no wish to harm you."
"What do you want?--and why do you force yourselves in, in this way?" she inquired, frightened nearly to death.
"I am a detective officer belonging to the London police force," said Mr. Strange, introducing himself in his true character. "I bring with me a warrant to search the house called the Maze and its out-door premises"--taking the folded paper from the man's hand. "Would you like me to read it to you before I go on?"
"Search them for what!" asked Ann Hopley, feeling angry with herself for her white face. "I don't want to hear anything read. Do you think we have got stolen goods here?--I'm sure you are enough to scare a body's senses away, bursting in like this!"
Mr. Strange slightly laughed. "We are not looking for stolen goods," he said.
"What for then!" resumed the woman, striving to be calm.
"For some one whom I believe is concealed here."
"Some one concealed here! Is it me?--or my mistress?--or my old husband?"
"No."
"Then you won't find anybody else," she returned with an air of relief. "There's no soul in the place but us three, and that I'll vow: except Mrs. Grey's baby. And we had good characters, sir, I can tell you, both me and my husband, before Mrs. Grey engaged us. Would we harbour loose characters here, do you suppose?"
It was so much waste of words. Mr. Strange went without further parley into the intricacies of the Maze, calling to the policeman to follow him, and bidding the other--who was a local policeman also in plain clothes: both of them from Basham--remain near the gate and guard it against anybody's attempted egress. All this while the gate had been open. Ann Hopley locked it with trembling fingers, and then followed the men through the maze, shrieking out words of remonstrance at the top of her voice. Had there been ten felons concealed within, she made enough noise to warn them all.
"For goodness sake, woman, don't make that uproar!" cried the detective. "We are not going to murder you."
The terrified face of Mrs. Grey appeared at her chamber window. Old Hopley was gazing through the chink of the door of the tool-house, which he was about to clean out. The detective heeded nothing. He went straight to the house door and entered it.
"Wait here at the open door, and keep a sharp look round inside and out," were his orders to the policeman. "If I want you, I'll call."
But Ann Hopley darted before Mr. Strange to impede his progress--she was greatly agitated--and seized hold of his arm.
"Don't go in," she cried imploringly; "don't go in, for the love of heaven! My poor mistress is but just out of her confinement and the fever that followed it, and the fright will be enough to kill her. I declare to you that what I have said is true. There's nobody on these premises but those I've named: my mistress and us two servants, me and Hopley. Itcan'tbe one of us you want!"
"My good woman, I have said that it is not. But, if it be as you say--that there's no one else, no one concealed here--why object to my searching?"
"For her sake," reiterated the agitated woman; "for the poor lady's sake."
"I must search: understand that," said Mr. Strange. "Better let me do it quietly."
As if becoming impressed with this fact, and that it was useless to contend further, Ann Hopley suddenly took her hands off the detective, leaving him at liberty to go where he would. Passing through the kitchen, she began to attend to her saucepan of potatoes.
Armed with his full power, both of law and of will, Mr. Strange began his search. The warrant had not been obtained from Sir Karl Andinnian, but from a magistrate at Basham: it might be that he did not feel sufficiently assured of Sir Karl's good faith: therefore the Maze was not averted beforehand.
It was not a large house; the rooms were soon looked into, and nothing suspicious was to be seen. Three beds were made up in three different chambers: the one in Mrs. Grey's room and two others. Was one of these occupied by Salter? The detective could not answer the doubt. They were plain beds in plain rooms, and it might be that the two servants did not sleep together. Knocking at the door, he entered Mrs. Grey's chamber: the baby slept in its cot: she stood at the glass in her dressing-gown, her golden hair falling about her.
"I beg your pardon; madam; I beg your pardon a thousand times," said the detective, with deprecation, as he removed his hat. "The law sometimes obliges us to do disagreeable things; and we, servants of it, cannot help ourselves."
"At least tell me the meaning of all this," she said with ashy face and trembling lips. And he explained that he was searching the house with the authority of a search-warrant.
"But what is it you want?Whois it?"
Again he explained to her that they were looking after an escaped fugitive, who, it was suspected, might have taken refuge in the Maze.
"I assure you, sir," she said, her gentle manner earnest, her words apparently truthful, "that no person whatever, man or woman, has been in the Maze since I have inhabited it, save myself and my two servants."
"Nevertheless, madam, we have information that some one else has been seen here."
"Then it has been concealed from me," she rejoined. "Will you not at least inform me who it is you are searching for? In confidence if you prefer: I promise to respect it."
"It is an escaped criminal named Salter," replied the officer, knowing that she would hear it from Sir Karl Andinnian, and wishing to be as civil to her as he could.
"Salter!" returned Mrs. Grey, showing the surprise that perhaps she did not feel. "Salter! Why Salter--at least if it is Salter--is the man who lives opposite these outer gates, and goes by the name of Smith. Salter has never been concealed here."
The very assertion made by Sir Karl Andinnian. Mr. Strange took a moment to satisfy his keen sight that there was no other ingress to this room, save by the door, and no piece of furniture large enough to conceal a man in, and was then about to bow himself out. But she spoke again.
"On my sacred word of honour, sir, I tell you truth. Sir Karl Andinnian--my landlord--has been suspecting that his agent, Smith, might turn out to be Salter: I suspected the same."
"But that man is not Salter, madam. Does not bear any resemblance to him. It was a misapprehension of Sir Karl's."
"And--do I understand that you are still looking for him here--in the Maze? I donotunderstand."
"Not looking for that man Smith, madam, but for the real Salter. We have reason to think he is concealed here."
"Then, sir, allow me to affirm to you in all solemnity, that Salter is not, and never has been concealed here," she said with dignity. "Such a thing would be impossible without my knowledge."
He did not care to prolong the conversation. He had his work to do, and no words from her or anyone else would deter him from it. As he was quitting the room, he suddenly turned to ask a question.
"I beg your pardon, madam. Have you any objection to tell me whether your two servants, Hopley and his wife, occupy the same room and bed?"
For a moment or two she gazed at him in silence, possibly in surprise at the question, and then gave her answer almost indifferently.
"Not in general, I believe. Hopley's cough is apt to be troublesome at night, and it disturbs his wife. But I really do not know much about their arrangements: they make them without troubling me."
The detective proceeded on his mission. He soon discovered the concealed door in the evening sitting-room, and passed into the passage beyond it. Ah, if Salter, or any other criminal, were in hiding within its dark recesses, there would be little chance for him now! The passage, very close and narrow, had no egress on either side; it ended in a flight of nearly perpendicular stairs. Groping his way down, he found himself in a vault, or underground room. Mr. Strange was provided with matches, and lighted one. It was a bare place, the brick walls dripping moisture, the floor paved with stone. Here he discovered another narrow passage that led straight along, it was hard to say how far, and he had need to strike more than one match before he had traversed it. It ended in a flight of stairs: which he ascended, and--found himself in a summer-house at the extreme boundary of the garden.
So far the search had not realized his expectations. On the contrary, it was so unsatisfactory as to be puzzling to his experienced mind. There had been no tracks or traces of Philip Salter; no indication that the passages were ever used; and the doors had opened at his touch, unsecured by bolt or bar.
Taking a look round him while he strove to solve more than one problem, the detective slowly advanced along the garden. All the garden ground surrounding the house, it must be understood, whether useful or ornamental, waswithinthe circle of the maze of trees. Turning a corner, after passing the fruit trees and vegetables, he came in view of the lawn and of the green-house; also of Ann Hopley, who was plucking some thyme from the herb bed.
"Have you found what you were looking for, sir!" she asked, every appearance of animosity gone, as she raised her head to put the question when he came near.
"Not yet."
"Well, sir, I hope you are satisfied. You may take my word for it that you never will."
"Think not?" he carelessly said, looking about him.
"Any way, I am not sorry that you have been through them subterranean places underground," she resumed. "My mistress and I have never ventured to look what was in them, and she has not much liked the thought of their being there. We got Hopley to go down one day, but his shoulders stuck in a narrow part, and he had to force 'em back and come up again."
The detective stepped into the green-house, and stood a moment admiring the choice flowers and some purple grapes ripening above. Ann Hopley had gathered her herbs when he came out, and stood with them in her hand.
"If you'd like to take a few flowers' sir, I'm sure Mrs. Grey would not wish to object. Or a bunch of grapes. There's some ripe."
"Thank you, not now."
He pulled open the tool-house door, only partly closed, and looked in on Hopley. The old man was cleaning it out. Sweeping the floor with a besom and raising a cloud of dust enough to choke a dozen throats, he was hissing and fizzing over his work.
Hopley looked very decrepid to-day: his swollen knees were bent and tottering: his humped back was all conspicuous as he stood; while his throat was enveloped in some folds of an old scarlet comforter.
"Mr. Hopley, I think," said the detective, politely. "Will you please tell me the name of the gentleman that's staying here?"
But Hopley, bent nearly double over his work, took no notice whatever. His back was towards the detective; and he kept on his hissing and fizzing, and scattering his clouds of dust.
"He does not hear you, sir," said Ann Hopley, advancing. "He's as deaf as a post, and can make out no voice but mine: especially when he has one of his sore throats upon him, as he has to-day. For my part, I think these bad throats have to do with the deafness. He is always getting them."
Stepping into the midst of the dust, she shook her husband by the arm somewhat roughly, and he raised his head with a start.
"Here, Hopley, just listen a minute," she screamed at the top of her voice. "This gentleman is asking you to tell him the name of the gentleman who is staying here--that's it, is it not, sir?"--and Mr. Strange nodded acquiescence. "The name, Hopley, the name."
"I've never see'd no lady here but the missis," said old Hopley at length, in his imperfect articulation, caused by the loss of his teeth, as he touched his broad-brimmed hat respectfully to the stranger, and looked up, leaning on the besom.
"Not a lady, Hopley; a gentleman," bawled Ann.
"I've see'd no gentleman here at all."
"He is rather stupid as to intellect, is he not?" cried the detective to the wife.
She resented the imputation. "Not at all, sir; no more than deaf people always seem to be."
"What gentleman be it?" asked Hopley. "Smith the agent comes for the rent at quarter-day, and Sir Karl Andinnian came over one morning about the well."
"Neither of those," roared out Mr. Strange. "The gentleman that's hiding here."
"Not them, Hopley," called Ann in his ear. "The gentleman that's hiding here, he says."
"Hiding where?" asked Hopley. "In them underground places? I never know'd as anybody was hiding in 'em."
"Ask him if he'll swear that no man whatever is in hiding here, Mrs. Hopley."
"The gentleman says will you swear that no man is in hiding here at the Maze?" repeated Ann, somewhat improving upon the question.
"I'll swear that there's neither man nor woman in the place, sir, to my knowledge, hiding or not hiding, but us two and the missis," was the answer, given directly to Mr. Strange, and as emphatically as his utterly toothless mouth allowed. "I swear it to my God."
"And you may trust him, sir," said Ann quietly. "I don't believe he ever told a lie in his life: much less took an oath to one. Hopley's honest and straightforward as the day, though he is a martyr to rheumatism."
Mr. Strange nodded his head to the man and left him to his sweeping. The work and the hissing began again before he was clear of the door. In both the tool-house and the green-house no possible chance was afforded of concealment--to ascertain which had doubtless been the chief motive for the detective's invasion of them.
"I don't believe the old man knows about it," ran his thoughts; "but the womandoes."
Ann Hopley carried her herbs indoors, and began picking them. Mr. Strange, calling the policeman to his aid, made as thorough a search out of doors as the nature of the premises and the puzzling maze of trees allowed. There was a closed-in passage of communication through the labyrinth, between the back of the house and the outer circle: but it was built solely with a view to convenience--such as the bringing in of coals or beer to the Maze; or, as Ann Hopley expressed it, the carrying of a coffin out of it. The detective had its doors unbolted and unbarred, and satisfied himself that it afforded no facility for concealment. Borrowing a candle of her, he went again to the secret passages underground, both policemen with him, to institute a more minute and thorough examination.
There ensued no result. And Mr. Detective Strange withdrew his men and finally departed himself; one mortifying word beating its unsatisfactory refrain on his brain:
"BAFFLED."
Once more on his weary way to London went Karl Andinnian, on the same weary business that he had gone before; but this time he was proceeding direct to the place he had hitherto shunned--Scotland Yard.
The extreme step, taken by the detective Tatton, in searching the Maze, had alarmed Karl beyond measure. True, the unfortunate fugitive, hiding there, had managed to elude detection: but who could say that he would be able to do so another time, or how often these men of the law might choose to go in? The very fact of their not being actually in search of Sir Adam, but of a totally different individual, made it seem all the more unbearably cruel.
In Mrs. Grey's dire distress and perplexity, she had sent that same night for Karl--after the search--and he heard the whole that had taken place. Adam confessed he did not know what was to be done, or how avert the fate--recapture--that seemed closely impending; and Rose almost fell on her knees before Karl, imploring him with tears to try and save her husband from the danger. Karl took his remorse home with him: remorse arising from the knowledge thathehad brought all this about, he, himself, in his insane inquiries after Salter: and, after much anxious consideration, he resolved to go on the morrow to Scotland Yard.
It was past noon when he reached his destination. After he had stated confidentially the nature of his business--that it was connected with the search after Philip Salter, then being carried on at Foxwood by Detective Tatton--he was told that it was Mr. Superintendent Game who must see him upon the point: but that at present the superintendent was engaged. Karl had to wait: and was kept waiting a considerable time.
Could Karl's eyes have penetrated through two walls and an intervening room, he might have been greatly astonished to see the person with whom the superintendent was occupied. It was no other than Tatton himself. For the detective, taking a night after the search to think over matters, just as Karl had done, had come to the determination of placing the history of his doings at Foxwood before his superiors, and to leave with them the decision whether he should go on with his search, or abandon it. Accordingly, he also had proceeded to London that morning, but by an earlier train; and he was now closeted with Mr. Superintendent Game--who had given him his original instructions, and had, specially, the Salter affair in hand--and was laying before him a succinct narration of facts, together with his various suspicions and his bafflings. Before the interview was over, the superintendent was as well acquainted with the Maze, its rumours and its mysteries and with sundry other items of Foxwood gossip, as Tatton himself could be.
"A gentleman waiting--had been waiting some time--to see Mr. Game on the Foxwood business," was the interruption that was first brought to them: and both Mr. Game and Tatton felt somewhat surprised thereby. What gentleman could be engaged on the Foxwood business, except themselves?
"Who is it?" asked the superintendent. And a card was handed in.
"Sir Karl Andinnian."
A moment's pause to revolve matters, and then the superintendent issued his fiat.
"See him in five minutes."
The five minutes were occupied with Tatton; but, he was safely away ere they had expired, carrying with him his orders to wait; and Sir Karl Andinnian was shown in. The superintendent and the visitor met for the first time, and glanced at each other with some curiosity. The officer saw, in the brother of the noted and unfortunate criminal, a pale, refined, and essentially gentlemanly man, with a sad but attractive face that seemed to tell of sorrow; the other saw a spare man of middle height, who in age might have been his father, and whose speech and manners betokened a cultivation as good as his own.
Taking the seat offered him, Karl entered at once upon his business. Explaining shortly and truthfully the unfortunate suspicion on his own part, that had led to his inquiries about Salter of Mr. Burtenshaw, and to the subsequent dispatch of Tatton to Foxwood. He concealed nothing; not even the slight foundation for those suspicions--merely the having seen the name of Philip Salter in a pocket-book that was in the possession of Philip Smith; and related his recent explanation with Smith; when he learnt that he and Salter were cousins. Karl told it all: and the officer saw, and believed, that he was telling it truly. Karl then went on to relate how he had himself sought an interview with Tatton on his last return from London--whither he had gone to try and convince Mr. Burtenshaw that it was not Salter; that he had learnt from Tatton then that his suspicions were directed to a house called the Maze, as the place of Salter's concealment, and that he, Sir Karl, had assured Tatton on his word of honour as a gentleman that it was altogether a mistaken assumption, for that Salter was not at the Maze, and never had been there. He had believed that Tatton was convinced by what he said: instead of which, he had taken the extreme and, under the circumstances, most unjustifiable step of proceeding to the house with a search warrant and two policemen, to the terror of the lady inhabiting it, Mrs. Grey, and her two old servants. It was to report this to Tatton's superiors at headquarters that he had now come up from Foxwood, Sir Karl added; not, he emphatically said, to complain of Mr. Tatton or to get him reprimanded, for no doubt the man, in doing what he had done, had believed it was but his duty: but to request that instructions might be given him to leave Mrs. Grey in tranquillity for the future. She, feeling much outraged and insulted by the suspicion that she could have a common criminal like Philip Salter concealed in her home, had sent for him, Sir Karl, as her landlord, to beg him to protect her if in his power, and to secure her from further molestation.
Mr. Superintendent Game listened to Sir Karl's narrative as attentively and with as much apparent interest as though it comprised information that he had never in all his life heard of: whereas, in point of fact, Tatton had just been going over the same facts with him, or nearly the same. He admitted to Sir Karl that it no doubt did seem to Mrs. Grey an unjustifiable step, an unaccountable intrusion; if indeed Salter were not concealed there and she knew nothing of him.
"I assure you, as I assured Tatton, that she does not," spoke Karl, with almost painful earnestness. "There is not an iota of foundation for supposing Salter ever was at Foxwood; certainly he was never at the Maze."
"Tatton is an experienced officer, Sir Karl. You may depend upon it that he had good reasons for what he did."
"That he fancied he had: I admit that. But they were utterly groundless. I should have thought that had any one lady, above another, been exempt from suspicion of any kind, it was Mrs. Grey. She lives a perfectly retired life at the Maze during her husband's absence, giving offence to none. To suppose she would allow the fugitive Salter, a man whom she never knew or saw, to be concealed within her domains is worse than preposterous."
"It is hazardous to answer so far for any one, Sir Karl," was the rejoinder--and Karl thought he detected a faint smile on the speaker's lips. "Especially for a woman. The best of them have their tricks and turns."
"I can answer for Mrs. Grey."
Mr. Superintendent Game, whose elbow as he faced Sir Karl was leaning on a desk-table, took it off and fell to pushing together some papers, as though in abstraction. He was no doubt taking time mentally to fit in some portions of Karl's narrative with the information possessed by himself. Karl waited a minute and then went on.
"I am sure that this lady would be willing to make a solemn affidavit that she knows nothing of Salter; and that he is not, and never has been, concealed there; if by so doing it would secure her exemption from intrusion for the future."
"Yes, no doubt," said the officer somewhat absently. "Sir Karl Andinnian," he added, turning briskly to face him again after another pause, "I assume that your own part in this business was confined to the sole fact of your entering on the misapprehension of taking your agent Smith to be Salter."
"That's all. But do you not see how I feel myself to be compromised: since it was my unfortunate endeavour to set the doubt at rest, by applying to Burtenshaw, that has originated all the mischief and brought the insult on Mrs. Grey!"
"Of course. But for that step of yours we should have heard nothing of Salter in connection with Foxwood."
Karl maintained a calm exterior: but he could have ground his teeth as he listened. It was too true.
"Then, with that one exception, Sir Karl, I am right in assuming that you personally hold no other part or interest in this affair, as regards Salter?"
"As regards Salter? None whatever."
"Well now," resumed the superintendent, in a confidential kind of tone, "we can talk at our ease for a minute. Does it not strike you, Sir Karl, as an impartial and impassioned looker-on, that there is something rather curious in the affair, taking one thing with another?"
"I fail to catch your meaning, sir," replied Karl, gazing at the superintendent. "I confess no such idea has occurred to me. Curious in what way?"
"We shall come to that. Philip Smith has been your agent about six months, I believe."
"About that."
"Whence did you have him? Where did he live before?"
"I really do not know. My mother, the late Mrs. Andinnian, who was occupying Foxwood Court during my absence abroad, engaged him. She became ill herself, was unable to attend to anything, and deemed it well to employ someone to look after my interests."
"Report runs in Foxwood--all kinds of gossip have come up to me from the place." The superintendent broke off to add--"that Smith is only your honorary agent, Sir Karl; that he gives it out he is an old friend of the Andinnian family."
"I can assure you that Smith is my paid agent. He has a house to live in, and takes his salary quarterly."
"The house is exactly opposite the Maze gates?"
"Yes," said Karl, beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable at the drift the conversation appeared to be taking.
"Is there any truth in the statement that your family knew him in earlier days? You will see in a minute, Sir Karl, why I ask you all this. I conclude there is not."
"I understood my mother to imply in her last illness that she had known something of him: but I was not sure that I caught her meaning correctly, and she was too ill for me to press the question. I had never heard of any Smith myself, and the chances were that I misunderstood her. He makes himself useful about the estate, and that is all I have to look to."
"Report says also--pardon me for recurring to it, Sir Karl--that he makes himself a very easy kind of agent; seems to do as he likes, work or play, and spends most of his time smoking in his front garden, exchanging salutations with the passers-by and watching his neighbour's opposite gate."
Had it been to save his life, Karl Andinnian could not have helped the change that passed over his countenance. What was coming? He strove to be cool and careless, poor fellow, and smiled frankly.
"I fancy he is rather idle--and given to smoke too much. But he does well what he has to do for me, for all that. Mine is not a large estate, as you may be aware, and Sir Joseph left it in first-rate condition. There is very little work for an agent."
"Well, now, I will ask you a last question, Sir Karl. Do you think Smith's residence at Foxwood is in any way connected with the Maze!"
"Connected with the Maze!" echoed Sir Karl, his face never betraying the uneasiness that his beating and terrified heart was beginning to feel all too keenly.
"That is, connected with its tenants."
"In what way would it be possible?"
"Look here. Philip Smith presents himself at Foxwood Court about six months ago, soliciting the agency of your estates from Mrs. Andinnian--as there is little doubt he did so present himself to her, and solicit. Now it was a very singular thing for him to do, considering that his previous life (as I happen to know) had in no way whatever qualified him for the situation. He knew no more of land or the duties of a land-agent than does this inkstand on my table. Why did he attempt to take such a place?"
"For the want of something else to do, probably," replied Karl. "He told me himself the other day, that his cousin's fall ruined him also, by causing him to be turned from his situation. As to the duties he has to perform for me, a child might be at home in them in a week."
"Granted. Let us go on. Mr. Smith's installation at your place as agent was closely followed by the occupancy of the Maze, Mrs. Grey and her servants arriving as its tenants. Was it not so, Sir Karl?"
"I--think it was," assented Karl, appearing to be recalling the past to his memory, and feeling himself in a bath of horror as he saw that the all-powerful man before him, powerful to know, to rule, and to act, was quite at home behind the scenes.
"Well, I cannot help thinking that the one may have been connected with the other; that Smith's appearance at your place, and the immediately-following occupancy of the Maze, may have been, so to say, connecting links in the same chain," continued the superintendent. "A doubt of it was floating in my mind before I had the honour of seeing you, Sir Karl: but I failed to detect any adequate cause; there was none on the surface. You have now supplied that, by telling me who Smith is--Salter's relative."
"Indeed I cannot understand you," said Karl, turning nevertheless from hot to cold.
"The Maze is a place--what with its surrounding labyrinth of trees and its secret passages and outlets--unusually favourable for concealment. A proscribed man might hide himself there for years and years, and never be discovered unless suspicion were accidentally drawn on him. I think the chances are that Salter is there; and that his cousin, Smith, is keeping guard over him for his protection, while ostensibly fulfilling only the duties of your agency. They may have discovered in some way the desirable properties of the Maze and laid their plans to come to it accordingly."
It was so faithful a picture of what Smith was really doing at Foxwood--though the one he was watching over was a very different man from Salter--that Karl Andinnian almost thought some treacherous necromancy must have been at work. All he could do was, to speak forcibly against the view, and to declare that there could not be any foundation for it.
"That is only your opinion against mine, Sir Karl," observed the superintendent courteously. "You may rely upon it, I think, that the fact of Salter's being there would be kept from you, of all people."
"Do you forget the slur you would cast on Mrs. Grey?"
"As to that, Salter may be some relative of hers. Even her husband--even her brother. I remember it was said, at the time his case fell, that he had one sister. In either case, of course Mrs. Grey--the name she goes under--would not allow the fact of his concealment there to transpire to you."
How could Karl meet this? Sitting there, in his perplexity and pain, he could not see a step before him.
"You have forgotten that Tatton has searched the Maze from roof to basement, Mr. Superintendent."
"Not at all. It tells nothing. There are no doubt other hidden places that he did not penetrate to in that first search. At best, it was but a superficial one."
That "first" search. Was all security slipping from Karl's feet, inch by inch?
"Believe me, you are wrong," he said; "your notion is an utterly mistaken one. I assure you on my word of honour, as truly and solemnly as I shall ever testify to any fact in this world, that Salter is not within the Maze, that he never has been. Mind you, sir, Iknowthis. I go over occasionally to see poor Mrs. Grey in her loneliness, and am in a position to speak positively."
An unmistakable smile sat on the officer's face now. "Ay," he said, "I have heard of your occasional nocturnal visits to her, Sir Karl. The young lady is said to be very attractive."
At the first moment, Sir Karl did not detect the covert meaning. It came to him with a rush of indignation. The superintendent had rarely seen so haughty a face.
"No offence, Sir Karl. 'Twas but a joke."
"A joke I do not like, sir. I am a married man."
"Est-ce que cela empêche"--the other was beginning: for the conclusion he had drawn, on the score of Sir Karl's evening visits, was a very decided one; but Karl put a peremptory stop to the subject. He deemed the superintendent most offensively familiar and unwarrantably foolish; and he resented in his angry heart the implied aspersion on his brother's wife, the true Lady Andinnian, than whom a more modest and innocent-natured woman did not exist. And it never entered into the brain of Karl Andinnian to suspect that the same objectionable joke might have been taken up by people nearer home, even by his own wife.
The interview came to an end. Karl went away, uncertain whether he had made sufficient impression, or not, to ensure the Maze against intrusion for the future. The superintendent did not say anything decisive, one way or the other, except that the matter must be left for his consideration. It might all have been well yet, all been well, but for this new complication, this suspicion rather, touching Smith and Salter jointly! He, Karl, had given the greatest rise to this, he and no other, by stating that day that the men were cousins. He asked himself whether Heaven could be angry with him, for whatever step he took for good only seemed to lead to mischief and make affairs worse. One assurance he did carry away with him: that the young lady at the Maze might rest content: her peace personally should not be molested. But that was not saying that the house should not be.
After Sir Karl's departure, the superintendent's bell rang and Tatton was recalled. A long conversation ensued. Matters known were weighed; matters suspected were looked at: and Mr. Tatton was finally bidden back to Foxwood.
Karl had gone direct from Scotland Yard to take the train. A fast one, which speedily conveyed him home. He walked from the station, and was entering his own gates when Hewitt--who seemed to have been gossiping at the lodge with the gardener's wife, but who had probably been lingering about in the hope of meeting his master--accosted him; and they went up the walk together.
"I am afraid something is amiss at the Maze, sir," began the man, looking cautiously around and speaking in a low tone.
"Something amiss at the Maze!" echoed Karl, seized with a terror that he did not attempt to conceal.
"Notthat, sir; not the worst, thank Heaven! Sir Adam has been taken ill."
"Hush, Hewitt. No names. Ill in what way I How do you know it?"
"I had been to carry a note for my lady to old Miss Patchett, Sir Karl. Coming back, Ann Hopley overtook me; she was walking from the station at a fine rate. Her master had been taken most alarmingly ill, she said; and at any risk a doctor must be had to him. They did not dare to call in Mr. Moore, lest he might talk to the neighbours, and she had been to the station then to telegraph for a stranger."
"Telegraph where!"
"To Basham, sir. For Dr. Cavendish."
Karl drew a deep breath. It seemed to be perplexity on perplexity: and he saw at once how much danger this step must involve.
"What is the matter with him, Hewitt? Do you know?"
"It was one of those dreadful fainting-fits, sir. But they could not get him out of it, and for some time thought he was really dead. Mrs. Grey was nearly beside herself, Ann said, and insisted on having a doctor. He is better now, sir," added Hewitt, "and I think there's no need for you to go over unless you particularly wish. I went strolling about the road, thinking I might hear or see something more, and when Ann Hopley came to the gate to answer a ring, she told me he was quite himself again but still in bed. It was the pain made him faint."
"I cannot think what the pain is," murmured Karl. "Has the doctor been?"
"I don't think he has yet, Sir Karl."
Karl lifted his hat to rub his aching brow. He saw his wife sitting under one of the trees, and went forward to join her. The wan, weary look on her face, growing more wan, more weary, day by day, struck on him particularly in the waning light of the afternoon.
"Do you do well to sit here, Lucy?" he asked, as he flung himself beside her, in utter weariness.
"Why should I not sit here?"
"I fancy the dew must be already rising."
"It will not hurt me. And if it did--what would it matter?"
The half reproaching, half indifferent accent in which it was uttered, served to try him. He knew what the words implied--that existence had, through him, become a burden to her. His nerves were strung already to their utmost tension; the trouble at his heart was pressing him sore.
"Don'tyou, by your reproaches, make matters worse for me, Lucy, to-day. God knows that I have well-nigh more than I can bear."
The strangely-painful tone, so full of unmistakable anguish, aroused her kindly nature. She turned to him with a sigh.
"I wish I could make things better for both of us, Karl."
"At least, you need not make them worse. What with one thing and another--"
"Well?" she said, her voice softened, as he paused.
"Nothing lies around me, Lucy, but perplexity and dread and pain. Look where I will, abroad or at home, there's not as much as a single ray of light to cheer my spirit, or the faintest reflection of it. You cannot wonder that I am sometimes tempted to wish I could leave the world behind me."
"Have you had a pleasant day in town?" she asked, after a little while.
"No, I have had an unsatisfactory and trying day in all ways. And I have come home to find more to try me: more dissatisfactionhere, more dread abroad. 'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.' Some of us are destined to realise the truth in ourselves all too surely."
He looked at his watch, got up, and walked indoors without another word. Lucy gazed after him with yearning eyes; eyes that seemed to have some of the perplexity he spoke of in their depths. There were moments when she failed to understand her husband's moods. This was one.