Karl Andinnian was tempted bitterly to ask of his own heart whether he could have fallen under the displeasure of Heaven, so persistently did every fresh movement of his, intended for good, turn into an increased bank of danger. Poor Sir Adam had more need to question it than he; for nothing but ill-omened chances seemed to pursue him.
It is quite probable that when Ann Hopley and her flurried mistress decided to telegraph for Dr. Cavendish of Basham, they had thought, and hoped, that the doctor would come back by train, pass quietly on foot into the Maze, so pass out again, and the public be none the wiser. Dr. Cavendish, however, who was out when the telegram arrived, drove over later in his gig; and the gig, with the groom in it, paced before the Maze gate while the doctor was inside, engaged with his patient.
Just then there occurred one of those unhappy chances. Mr. Moore, the surgeon, happened to walk by with his daughter, Jemima, and saw the gig--which he knew well--waiting about. It took him by surprise, as he had not heard that anyone was ill in the vicinity. The groom touched his hat, and Mr. Moore went up to him.
"Waiting for your master, James? Who is he with? Who is ill?"
"It's somebody down yonder, sir," replied the man, pointing back over his shoulder to indicate the Maze; but which action was not intelligible to the surgeon.
"Down where? At the Court?"
"No, sir. At the Maze."
"At the Maze! Why, who can be ill there?'" cried Mr. Moore.
"I don't know, sir. Master had a telegram, telling him to come."
At that moment Dr. Cavendish was seen to leave the gate and come towards his gig. Mr. Moore walked quickly forward to meet him, and the gig turned.
"I suppose you have been called to Mrs. Grey, doctor," observed the surgeon, as he shook hands. "Has she had a relapse? I wonder she did not send for me. I have but just given up attending her."
"Mrs. Grey!" returned the Doctor. "Oh, no. It is a gentleman I have been called to see."
"What gentleman?" asked the surgeon in surprise. "There's no gentleman at the Maze."
"One is there now. I don't know who it is. Some friend or relative of the lady's, probably. Ah, Miss Jemima! blooming as ever, I perceive," he broke off, as the young lady came slowly up. "Could you not give some of us pale, over-worked people a receipt for those roses on your cheeks?"
"What is it that's the matter with him?" interposed the surgeon, leaving his daughter to burst into her giggle.
Dr. Cavendish put his arm within his friend's, led him beyond the hearing of Miss Jemima, and said a few words in a low tone.
"Why, the case must be a grave one!" exclaimed Mr. Moore aloud.
"Ithink so. I don't like the symptoms at all. From some cause or other, too, it seems he has not had advice till now, which makes it all the more dangerous."
"By the way, doctor, as you are here, I wish you would spare five minutes to see a poor woman with me," said Mr. Moore, passing from the other subject. "It won't hinder you much longer than that."
"All right, Moore. Who is it?"
"It's the widow of that poor fellow who died from sun-stroke in the summer, Whittle. The woman has been ailing ever since, and very grave disease has now set in. I don't believe I shall save her; only yesterday it crossed my mind to wish you could see her. She lives just down below there; in one of the cottages beyond Foxwood Court."
They got into the gig, the physician taking the reins, and telling his groom to follow on foot. Miss Jemima was left to make her own way home. She was rather a pretty girl, with a high colour, and a quantity of light brown curls, and her manners were straightforward and decisive. When the follies and vanities of youth should have been chased away by sound experience, allowing her naturally good sense to come to the surface, she would, in all probability, be as strong-minded as her Aunt Diana, whom she already resembled in many ways.
The autumn evening was drawing on: twilight had set in. Miss Jemima stood a moment, deliberating which road she should take; whether follow the gig, and go home round by the Court, or the other way. Of the two, the latter was the nearer, and the least lonely; and she might--yes, she might--encounter Mr. Cattacomb on his way to or from St. Jerome's. Clearly it was the one to choose. Turning briskly round when the decision was made, she nearly ran against Mr. Strange. That gentleman had just got back from London, sent down again by the authorities at Scotland Yard, and was on his way from the station. The Maze had become an object, of so much interest to him as to induce him to choose the long way round that would cause him to pass its gates, rather than take the direct road to the village. And here was another of those unfortunate accidents apparently springing out of chance; for the detective had seen the gig waiting, and halted in a bend of the hedge to watch the colloquy of the doctors.
"Good gracious, is it you, Mr. Strange?" cried the young lady, beginning to giggle again. "Why, Mother Jinks declared this afternoon you had gone out for the day!"
"Did she? Well, when I stroll out I never know when I may get back: the country is more tempting in autumn than at any other season. That was a doctor's gig, was it not, Miss Jemima?"
"Dr. Cavendish's of Basham," replied Miss Jemima, who enjoyed the honour of a tolerable intimacy with Mrs. Jinks's lodger--as did most of the other young ladies frequenting the parson's rooms.
"He must have come over to see some one. I wonder who is ill?"
"Papa wondered, too, when he first saw the gig. It is somebody at the Maze."
"Do you know who?"
"Well, they seemed to talk as if it were a gentleman. I did not much notice."
"A gentleman?"
"I think so. I am sure they said 'he' and 'him.' Perhaps Mrs. Grey's husband has arrived. Whoever it is he must be very ill, for I heard papa say the case must be 'grave,' and the doctor called it 'dangerous.' They have gone on together now to see poor Hannah Whittle."
Not since he had had the affair in hand had the detective's ears been regaled with so palatable a dish. That Philip Salter had been taken ill with some malady or another sufficiently serious to necessitate the summoning of a doctor, he fully believed. Miss Jemima resumed.
"I must say, considering that papa is the medical attendant there, Mrs. Grey might have had the good manners to consult him first."
"It may be the old gardener that's ill," observed the detective slowly, who had been turning his thoughts about.
"So it may," acquiesced Miss Jemima. "He's but a poor, creaky old thing by all accounts. But no--they would hardly go to the expense of telegraphing for a physician for him with papa at hand."
"Oh, they telegraphed, did they?"
"So the groom said."
"The girl is right," thought the detective. "They'd not telegraph for Hopley. It is Salter. And they have called in a stranger from a distance in preference to Mr. Moore close by. The latter might have talked to the neighbourhood. You have done me a wonderful service, young lady, if you did but know it."
Mr. Strange did not offer to attend her home, but suffered her to depart alone.
Miss Jemima, who was rather fond of a little general flirtation, though she did perhaps favour one swain above all others, resented the slight in her heart. She consoled herself after the manner of the fox when he could not reach the grapes.
"He's nothing but a bear," said she, tossing her little vain head as she tripped away in the deepening gloom of the evening. "It is all for the best. We might have chanced to meet Mr. Cattacomb, and then he would have looked daggers at me. Or--my goodness me!--perhaps Aunt Diana."
Mr. Strange strolled on, revolving the aspect of affairs in his official mind. His next object must be to get to speak to Dr. Cavendish and learn who it really was that he had been to see. Of course it was not absolutely beyond the cards of possibility that the sick man was Hopley. It was not impossible that Mrs. Grey might have some private and personal objection to the calling in again of Mr. Moore; or that the old man had been seized with some illness so alarming as to necessitate the services of a clever physician in preference to those of a general practitioner. He did not think any of this likely, but itmightbe; and only Dr. Cavendish could set it at rest.
Perhaps some slight hope animated him that he might obtain an immediate interview with Dr. Cavendish on the spot, as he returned from Mrs. Whittle's cottage. If so, he found it defeated. The gig came back with the two gentlemen in it, and it drove off direct to the village, not passing Foxwood Court at all, or the detective; but the latter was near enough to see it travel along. Mr. Moore was dropped at his own house, and the groom--who had been sent on there--taken up; and then the gig went on to Basham.
"I must see him somehow," decided the detective--"and the less time lost over it, the better. Of course a man in the dangerously sick state this one is represented to be, cannot make himself scarce as quickly as one in health could; but Salter has not played at hide-and-seek so long to expose himself unnecessarily. He would make superhuman efforts to elude us, and rather get away dying than wait to be taken. Better strike while the iron is hot. I must see the doctor to-night."
He turned back to the station; and was just in time to watch the train for Basham go puffing out.
"That train has gone on before its time!" he cried in anger.
After reference to clocks and watches, it was found that it had gone on before its time by more than a minute. The station-master apologised: said the train was up three or four minutes too early; and, as no passengers were waiting to go on by it, he had given the signal to start rather too soon. Mr. Strange gave the master in return a bit of his mind; but he could not recall the train, and had to wait for the next.
The consequence of this was, that he did not reach Basham until past nine o'clock. Enquiring for the residence of Dr. Cavendish, he was directed to a substantial-looking house near the market-place. A boy in buttons, who came to the door, said the Doctor was not at home.
"I particularly wish to see him," said Mr. Strange. "Will he be long?"
"Well, I don't know," replied the boy, indifferently; who, like the rest of his tribe, had no objection to indulge in semi-insolence when it might be done with safety. "Master don't never hardly see patients at this hour, None of 'em cares to come at night-time."
"I am not a patient. My business with Dr. Cavendish is private and urgent. I will wait until he comes in."
The boy, not daring to make objection to this, ushered the visitor into a small room that he called the study. It had one gaslight burning; just enough to illumine the book-shelves and a white bust or two that stood in the corners on pedestals. Here Mr. Strange was left to his reflections.
He had plenty of food for them. That Salter was at the Maze, he felt as sure of as though he had already seen him. Superintendent Game had informed him who Smith the agent had acknowledged himself to be--Salter's cousin--and stated his own views of the motives that induced his residence at Foxwood. This was an additional thread in the web of belief Mr. Strange was weaving; a confirmatory link that seemed all but conclusive. In the short period that elapsed between his interview with Nurse Chaffen, chez elle, and his run up to London, he had seen his friend Giles, the footman, and by dint of helping that gentleman to trace days back and recall events, had arrived at a fact that could neither be disputed nor controverted--namely, that it could not have been Sir Karl Andinnian who was seen at the Maze by her and the surgeon. On that evening, Sir Karl, his wife, and Miss Blake had gone to a dinner party at a few miles distance. At the self-same minute of time that the event at the Maze took place, they were seated with the rest of the company at the dinner table, Mr. Giles himself standing behind in waiting. This was a fact: and had Miss Blake taken a little trouble to ascertain from Nurse Chaffenwhichevening it was the mysterious gentleman had presented himself to view, and then recalled the day of the dinner, she would have discovered the fallacy of her belief in supposing him to have been Sir Karl.
Mr. Strange had, however, discovered it, and that was unfortunately more to the purpose. Whatever might be the object of Sir Karl's private visits to the Maze--and upon that point Mr. Strange's opinion did not change, and he had laughed quietly over it with the superintendent--it was not Sir Karl who was seen that night. It was a great point to have ascertained: and the detective thought he had rarely held stronger cards at any game of chance than were in his hands now. That Mrs. Grey would prove to be Salter's sister, he entertained no doubt of.
But the waiting was somewhat weary. Ten o'clock. Unless Dr. Cavendish made his appearance shortly, Mr. Strange would lose the last train, and have the pleasure of walking all the way from Basham. He was standing before one of the busts--the late Sir Robert Peel's--when the door opened, and there entered a quiet lady-like woman, with cordial manners and-a homely face. It was Mrs. Cavendish.
"I am so sorry you should have to wait so long for my husband," she said. "If I knew where he was gone, I would send to him: but he did not happen to tell me before he went out. Your business with him is of importance, I hear."
"Yes, madam: of importance to myself. Perhaps he will not be much longer now."
"I should think not. Will you allow me to send you in a glass of wine?"
He thanked her, but declined it; and she went away again. A short while, and a latch-key was heard in the house door, denoting the return of its master. Some few words were exchanged in the hall between Dr. Cavendish and his wife--and the former entered: a short, quick-speaking man, with grey whiskers.
As a matter so much of course that it hardly needs mentioning, the detective had to be no less crafty in conducting this interview than he was in some other matters. To have said to Dr. Cavendish, "I want from you a description of the patient you were called to see to-day, that I may ascertain whether it be indeed an escaped criminal of whom I am in search," would have been to close the doctor's mouth. It was true that he might open his cards entirely and say, "I am Detective Tatton from Scotland Yard, and I require you in the name of the law to give me all the information you can about the patient;" and, in that case it was possible that the doctor might deem himself obliged to give it. But he preferred to keep that master-stroke in hand, and try another way.
He possessed pleasant manners, and had a winning way with him--it has been already said; he spoke as a gentleman. Sitting down close to the doctor, he began enquiring in an earnest tone after the new patient at the Maze, and spoke so feelingly about patients in general, that he half gained the physician's heart.
"You are some close friend of the gentleman's?" observed Dr. Cavendish. And the word "gentleman" set the one great doubt at rest.
"I am most deeply interested in him," said the detective: and the unsuspicious doctor never noticed the really sophistical nature of the answer.
"Well, I am sorry to tell you that I think him very ill. I don't know what they can have been about not to call in advice before." And in a few short words he stated what disease the symptoms seemed to threaten.
It startled the detective. He was sufficiently acquainted with surgery to know that it was one of difficulty and danger.
"Surely, Dr. Cavendish, he is not threatened withthat?"
"I fear he is."
"Why, it will kill him! It is not curable, is it?"
"Rarely, if ever, when once it has certainly set-in."
"And it kills soon."
"Generally."
Mr. Strange looked very blank. To hear that his prize might escape him by death--or might die close upon his capture, was eminently unsatisfactory. It would be a termination to the great affair he had never thought of; would tarnish all the laurels in a business point of view: and he was, besides, not a hard-hearted man.
"He is very young for that kind of thing, is he not, doctor?"
"Yes. Rather so."
"What brings it on, sir, in general?"
"Oh, various causes."
"Will trouble induce it?--I meangreattrouble; anxiety; care?"
"Sometimes. Especially if there should be any hereditary tendency to it in the system."
"Well, I did not expect to hear this."
"Are you his brother?" asked the Doctor, seeing how cut-up the visitor looked. "Not that I detect any likeness."
"No, I am not his brother; or any other relative. Do you consider it a hopeless case, Dr. Cavendish?"
"I have not said that. I should not be justified in saying it. In fact, I have not yet formed a positive opinion on the case, and cannot do so until I shall have examined further into it. All I say at present is, that I do not like the symptoms."
"And--if the symptoms turn out to be what you fear; to threaten the malady you speak of--what then?"
"Why then there will be very little hope for him."
"You are going over to him again, then?"
"Of course. To-morrow. He is not in a state to be left without medical attendance."
"How long do you think it has been coming on, doctor?"
"I cannot tell you that. Not less than a twelvemonth, if it be what I fear."
Mr. Strange played with his watch-chain. He wanted the description of the man yet--though, in fact he felt so sure as hardly to need it, only that detectives do not leave anything to chance.
"Would you mind telling me what you think of his looks, Dr. Cavendish?"
"Oh, as to his looks, they are the best part about him. His face is somewhat worn and pallid, but it is a very handsome face. I never saw a nicer set of teeth. His hair and short beard seem to have gone grey prematurely, for I should scarcely give him forty years."
"He is only five-and-thirty," spoke the detective, thinking of Salter. And that, as the reader may recall, was also about the age of Sir Adam.
"Only that? Then in looks he has prematurely aged."
"In his prime, say two or three years ago, he was as good-looking a man as one would wish to see," observed the detective, preparing to give a gratuitous description of Salter. "A fine, tall, upright figure, strongly-built withal; and a pleasant, handsome, frank face, with fine dark eyes and hair, and a colour fresh as a rose."
"Ay," acquiesced the physician: "I only saw him in bed, and he is now much changed, but I should judge that would be just the description that once applied to him. You seem to hint at some great trouble or sorrow that he has gone through: he gives me just that idea. Of what nature was it?--if I may ask."
"It was trouble that was brought on by himself--and that is always the most trying to bear. As to its nature--you must pardon me for declining to particularise it, Dr. Cavendish, but I am really not at liberty to do so. Do not put the refusal down to discourtesy. It is not yet over: and the chances are that you will certainly hear all about it in a day or two."
Dr. Cavendish nodded. He assumed the words to imply that the patient himself would enlighten him. As to the detective, his mission was over; and well over. He had learnt all he wanted: what he had suspected was confirmed.
"That beautiful young woman, living alone at the Maze--what relative is she of his?" asked the doctor, as his visitor rose and took up his hat.
"His sister," was the rather hazardous answer.
"Oh, his sister. Mr. Moore could not make out who the patient was. He thought it might be the husband who had returned. When I asked his name, to write a prescription for the chemist, Mrs. Grey said I might put it in hers--Grey."
"I thank you greatly for your courtesy, Dr. Cavendish."
"You are welcome," said the doctor. "Mind, I have not expressed any certain opinion as to his non-recovery. Don't go and alarm him. What I have said to you was said in confidence."
"You may depend upon me. Good night."
Mr. Detective Strange had to walk from Basham, for the last train was gone and his return half-ticket useless. Basham police station was nearly opposite the doctor's, and he stepped in there to leave a message on his way. In the satisfaction his visit had afforded him, he did not at all mind the night-walk: on the morrow, the long-sought-for Salter, who had dodged them so vexatiously, would be in their hands, the prey would have fallen. A satisfaction, however, that was not without alloy, in the damping circumstances that encompassed the man's state of health. And for that he could but feel compassion.
Midnight was chiming from the clock at Foxwood as he reached the Maze--for he preferred to take that roundabout way. Halting at the gate, he looked about and listened for a minute or two. Then he let himself in with his master-key, and went through the labyrinth.
The house lay in silence. All seemed still as the grave. There was no light, no sound, no token of illness inside; no, nor even of inmates. He gently put the said key in the entrance-door to see if it would yield. No: the door was not only locked but bolted and barred. He went to the summer-house, leading up from the underground places, and found the trapdoor there also bolted and barred within. All was as secure as wary hands could make it.
"And it is welcome to remain so until to-morrow," breathed the detective as he turned to thread his silent steps back through the maze; "but then, Mr. Philip Salter, you are mine. Neither bolts nor bars can save you then."
And he finally let himself out again at the gate with that ingenious instrument, the key. To be polite, we will apply a French name to it, and call it a passe-partout.
But Dr. Cavendish, reflecting afterwards upon the interview, rather wondered who the stranger was, and whence he had come; and remembered then that he had totally omitted to ask his name.
The morning sun was chasing the dew from the grass: and the lawn at the Maze, glittering so brightly in the welcome rays, told no tales of the strange feet that had, unbidden and unsuspected, trodden it in the night. Mrs. Grey, looking wondrously pretty and delicate in her white morning gown, with her golden hair as bright as the sunshine, sat at breakfast in a little room whose window was beside the entrance porch. Her baby, wide awake, but quiet and good, lay covered up on the sofa in its night-dress. She was talking to it as she eat her breakfast, and the wide-open little eyes were turned to her as if it understood.
"Good little darling! Sweet, gentle baby! It does not scream and fight as other babies do: no never. It is mamma's own precious treasure--and mamma is going to dress it presently and put on its pretty worked robe. Oh, baby, baby!" she broke off, her mood changing, and the distress at her heart rising to the surface, above the momentary make-believe dalliance, "if we could but be at rest as others are! We should be happier than the day has hours in it."
The accession of illness, attacking Sir Adam on the previous day, the great risk they ran in calling in a doctor to him, had shaken poor Rose's equanimity to the centre. She strove to be brave always, for his sake; she had been in the habit of keeping-in as well as she could the signs of the dread that ever lay upon her, and she had done so in a degree yesterday. But in the evening when the doctor had safely gone, and the day and its troubles were over, she had yielded to a sudden fit of hysterical weeping. Her husband came into the room in the midst of it. He partly soothed, partly scolded her: where was the use of fretting, he asked; better take matters as they came. With almost convulsive efforts she swallowed her sobs and dried her eyes; and turned the tables on him by gently reproaching him with getting up, when Dr. Cavendish had peremptorily enjoined him to stay in bed. Sir Adam laughed at that: saying he felt none the worse for his fainting fit, or whatever it was, and was not going to lie abed for all the doctors in Christendom.
The cheery morning sun is a great restorer--a gladdening comforter: and Rose felt its influence. During her sleepless night, nothing could be more disheartening, nothing more gloomy than the view pervading her mind: but this morning, with that glorious light from heaven shining on all things, she and the earth alike revived under it. One great thing she felt incessant thankfulness for; it was a real mercy--that that miserable visitation of the detective and his policemen had not been delayed to the day of Sir Adam's illness. Had they caught him in bed, no earthly power, she thought, could have saved him. Karl, stealing over for a few minutes at night, to see for himself what this alarm of increased illness of his brother's could mean, had warned them both to be prepared, for he had reason to fancy the search might be repeated.
"This spot is getting more dangerous day by day," murmured Rose to herself, pouring out another cup of tea. "Oh, if we could but get away from it! London itself seems as though it would be safer than this."
She proceeded with her meal very slowly, her thoughts buried in schemes for their departure. Of late she had been ever weaving a web of possibility for it, a cunning plan of action: and she thought she had formed one. If necessaryshewould stay on at the Maze with her baby--oh, for months--for years even--so that Adam could but get away. Until this man the detective--more feared by her, more dreadful to contemplate than any man born into the world yet--should take his departure from the place, nothing might be attempted: they could only remain still and quiet; taking what precautions they could against surprise and recapture, and she praying always that her husband might be spared this last crowning calamity: beyond which, if it took place, there would never more be anything in this world but blank despair.
Ann Hopley was upstairs, making the beds, and attending to matters there generally. Until her room was ready, and the fire had burnt up well to dress the baby by, Mrs. Grey would stay where she was: consequently she was at full liberty to linger over her breakfast. There was something in the extreme quietness of the little child, and in its passive face, that to a more experienced eye might have suggested doubts of its well-being: a perfectly healthy infant is apt to be as troublesome as it can be. Mrs. Grey suspected nothing. It had improved much since its baptism, and she supposed it to be getting strong and healthy. A soft sweet plaintive note escaped the child's lips.
"Yes, my baby. Mamma has not forgotten you. The room will soon be warm, and baby shall be dressed. And then mamma will wrap it up well and wrap herself up, and sit out of doors in the sunshine. And papa----"
The words broke off in a low wail of horror; her heart seemed to die away in the faintness of sick despair. Something like a dark cloud had passed the window, shutting out for a moment the glad sunshine on the grass. It was Mr. Detective Strange: and, following closely on his heels, were the two same policemen, both of them this time in official clothes. They had come through the maze without warning, no doubt by the help of the passe-partout, and were making swiftly for the entrance-door--that lay open to the morning air. Her supposition was that they had fathomed Adam's system of concealment.
"God help us! God save and protect us!" breathed the poor wife, clasping her hands, and every drop of blood going out of her ashy face.
Mr. Strange, who had seen her through the window, was in the room without a moment's delay. He was courteous as before; he meant to be as considerate as the nature of his mission allowed him to be: and even before he had spoken a word, the keen, practised eye took in the visible signs. The small parlour affording no possibility for the concealment of Salter; the baby on the sofa; the breakfast, laid for one only, of which Mrs. Grey was partaking.
He was very sorry to be obliged to intrude upon her again: but he had orders once more to search the Maze, and could but obey them. And he begged her to believe that she herself, individually, should be subjected to no annoyance or restraint.
She made no answer: she could collect neither thoughts nor words to do so in her terrible fear. Mr. Strange retreated with a bow and closed the door again, making a mental comment upon her evident distress, her ghastly looks.
"There's no mistake, I think, that he is ready to our hands this time: her face alone would betray it. The curious thing is--where was he before?"
Ann Hopley had finished the rooms, and was kneeling before the fire in her mistress's chamber, coaxing an obstinate piece of coal to burn, and blowing at it with her lips with all her might, when a slight noise caused her to turn. There stood Mr. Strange, a policeman at his elbow. She had not heard the entrance. Up she got, and stood staring; unable to believe her eyes, and startled almost into screaming. But she knew how much lay upon her--almost life or death.
"Goodness bless me!" cried she, speaking freely, as she strove to brave it out, and shaking inwardly. "Whatever brings you folks here again?"
"We have to go through the house once more."
"How did you get in?"
"Quite legally," replied Mr. Strange. "I have to do my duty."
So entirely was she unprepared for this, and perhaps fearing that in her state of dismayed perplexity she might let fall some dangerous word of admission, feeling also that she could do no good to her master by staying, but might do harm, Ann Hopley withdrew, after giving the fire a gentle lift with the poker, and went down to the kitchen with a cool air, as if resolved not to let the affair interrupt her routine of work. Taking up a small basket of what she would have termed "fine things," recently washed, consisting of caps and bits of lace, and such like articles pertaining to the baby, she carried it out of doors beyond the end of the lawn, and began putting the things on gooseberry bushes to dry. Old Hopley was pottering about there, doing something to the celery bed. The policeman left on guard below, and standing so that his sight could command all things, surveyed her movements with a critical eye. She did not go out of his sight, but came back with the basket at once. While spreading the things, she had noted him watching her.
"I daresay I'm a kind of genteel prisoner," ran her thoughts. "If I attempted to go where those ugly eyes of his couldn't follow me, he might be for ordering me back, for fear I should be giving warning to the master that they are here. Well, we can do nothing; it is in Heaven's hands: better they came in to-day than yesterday!"
Mr. Detective Strange had rarely felt surer of anything than he was that he should find Philip Salter in bed, and capture him without the slightest difficulty in his sick state. It was not so to be. Very much to his amazement, there appeared to be no sign whatever of a sick man in the place. The rooms were all put in order for the day, the beds made; nothing was different from what it had been at the time of his previous entrance. Seek as he would, his practised eye could find no trace--nay, no possibility--of any hidden chamber. In fact, there was none.
"Where the deuce can the fellow be?" mused Mr. Strange, gazing about him with a thoughtful air.
The underground places were visited with as little success, though the search he made was minute and careful. He could not understand it. That Salter had not been allowed time to escape out of doors, so rapid was their first approach, he knew; but, nevertheless, the trees and grounds were well examined. Hopley lifted his poor bent back from his work in the celery-bed--from which, as the watching policeman could have testified, he had not stirred at all--to touch his straw hat when the detective passed. Mr. Strange answered by a nod, but did not accost him. To question the deaf old man would be only waste of time.
There was some mystery about all this; a mystery he--even he--could not at present fathom. Just one possibility crossed his mind and was exceedingly unwelcome--that Salter, alarmed by the stir that was being made, had in truth got away. Got away, in spite of the precautions that he, Strange, in conjunction with the police of Basham, had been for the past day or two taking, secretly and unobserved.
He did not believe it. He did not wish to believe it. And, in truth, it seemed to him not to be possible, for more reasons than one. A man in the condition of health hinted at by Dr. Cavendish would be in no state for travelling. But still--with the Maze turned, as he honestly believed, inside out, and showing no signs or trace of Salter, where was he?
This took up some time. Ann Hopley had got her preparations for dinner forward, had answered the butcher's bell and taken in the meat: and by and by went across the garden again to cut two cauliflowers. She was coming back with them in her apron, when Mr. Strange met her, and spoke.
"I have a question or two to put to you, Mrs. Hopley, which I must desire of you to answer--and to answer correctly. Otherwise I shall be obliged to summon you before the magistrates and compel your answers on your oath. If you are wise you will avoid giving me and yourself that trouble."
"As far as answering you goes, sir, I'd as soon answer as be silent," she returned, in a temperate but nevertheless injured tone. "But I must say that it puts my temper up to see an innocent and inoffensive young lady insulted as my poor mistress is. What has she done to be signalled out for such treatment? If she were not entirely unprotected here, a lone woman, you'd not dare to do it. You told her the other day you were in search of one Salter: and you know that you looked in every hole and corner our house has got, and must have satisfied yourself that no Salter was here. And yet, here you come in, searching again!"
"It was not Salter, I suppose, who was ill yesterday; for whom Dr. Cavendish was telegraphed?" rejoined Mr. Strange, significantly, having allowed her speech to run on to its end. "Perhaps you will tell me that?"
"Salter! That I'll take my oath it was not, sir."
"Who was it, then?"
"Well, sir, it was no one that you could have any concern with."
"I am the best judge of that. Who was it? Remember, I ask you in the name of the law, and you must answer me."
"That gentleman came down on a short visit to my mistress, and was taken ill while he stayed. It frightened us out of our senses; it was a fainting-fit, or something of that sort, but he looked for all the world like a man dead; and I ran off and telegraphed for a doctor."
The detective's eyes were searching Ann Hopley through and through. She did not flinch: and looked innocent as the day.
"What has become of him?"
"He went away again last night, sir."
"Went away, did he!"--in a mocking tone of incredulity.
"He did, sir. After the doctor left he got up and dressed and came down, saying he was better. He didn't seem to think much of his illness; he had been as bad, he said, before. I confess I was surprised, myself, to hear he was going away, for I thought him not well enough to travel. But I believe he was obliged to go."
"What was his name?"
"I did not hear it, sir. He was here but a few hours in all."
"Look here, Mrs. Hopley: if you will tell me where that gentleman came from, and what his name is, I will give you five sovereigns."
Her eyes opened, apparently with the magnitude of the offer.
"I wish I could, sir. I'm sure I should be glad to earn all that, if it were in my power; for I don't believe Hopley will be able to work over-much longer, and we are laying up what little we can. I think he came from London, but I am not sure: and I think he's going off to some foreign country, for he and my mistress were talking of the sea. She wished him a good voyage and a safe landing. I heard her."
The detective paused. Was this true or false? "What was his name? Come, Mrs. Hopley?"
"Sir, I have said that I did not hear his name. He came without our expecting him, or I might have heard beforehand. My mistress called him Edward: but of course that must be his Christian name. I understood him to be some relation of hers."
"I wonder what Hopley could tell me of this?" cried the detective, looking at her.
"Hopley could tell you nothing--but of course you are welcome to ask him if you please. Hopley never saw him at all, as far as I know; and I did not say anything to the old man about it. If you question Hopley, sir, I must help you--you'd be a month making him hear, yourself."
"How is it that you keep your husband in ignorance of things?--as you seem to do."
"Of what things, sir?" rejoined the woman. "I'm sure I don't keep things from him: I have no things to keep. It's true I didn't tell him of this. I was uncommonly tired last night, for it had been a trying day, and full of work besides; and it takes no little exertion, I can testify, to make Hopley understand. One can't gossip with him, as one can with people who have got their hearing."
This was no doubt true. The detective was frightfully at fault, and did not conceal from himself that he was. The woman seemed so honest, so open, so truthful; and yet he could have staked his professional fame that there lay mystery somewhere, and that the sick man had not gone away. Instinct, prevision--call it what you will--told him that the man was lying close to his hand--if he could only put that hand out in the right direction and lay it on him. Bending his head, he took a few steps about the grass: and Ann Hopley, hoping she was done with, went into the kitchen with her cauliflowers.
Letting them fall on to the dresser out of her apron, she gave a sharp look around, indoors and out. The detective was then conversing with his two policemen, whom he had called up. Now was her time. Slipping off her shoes--though it was not likely her footsteps could be heard out on the lawn--she went across the passage, and opened the door of the little room: from which Mrs. Grey, in her fear and distress, had not dared to stir.
"Mistress," she whispered, "I must give you the clue of what I have been saying, lest they come and ask you questions too. It would never do for us to have two tales, you one and me another. Do you mind me, ma'am?"
"Go on, Ann. Yes."
"The sick gentleman came unexpectedly yesterday, and was taken sick here. You and me got frightened, and sent telegraphing off for a doctor. He got up after doctor left--said he was better--didn't seem to think much of his illness, said he had been as bad before. Went away again at night; had to go; was going off to sea, I thought, as I heard you wish him a good voyage and safe landing. I didn't know his name, I said; only heard you call him Edward: thought it was some near relation of yours.--Can you remember all this, ma'am?"
"Oh yes. You had better go back, Ann. If they see you talking to me--oh, go back! Ann, I--I feel as though I should die."
"Nay, but you must keep up," returned the woman in a kind tone. "I'll bring you in a beat-up egg with a drop of wine in it. And, ma'am, you might say he was your brother if they come to close questioning: or brother-in-law. Don't fear. I'd lay all I'm worth they won't light upon the master. Twice they went within a yard or two of him, but----"
There was some noise. Ann Hopley broke off, closed the door softly, stole back again, and slipped her feet into her shoes. In less than a minute, when one of the men sauntered up, throwing his eyes through all the windows, she was in the scullery pumping water over her cauliflowers with as much noise as she could make.
Ann Hopley had judged correctly. Mr. Strange went to the little room, knocking for permission to enter, and there held an audience of its mistress. The baby lay on her lap now, fast asleep. His questions were tended to get a confirmation--or contradiction--of the servant's ready tale. Mrs. Grey, though in evident tremor, and looking only fit for a ghost, had caught the thread of her lesson well, and answered correctly. Some particulars she had to improvise; for his questions were more minute than they had been to Ann Hopley.
His name?--Grey. What relation?--Brother-in-law. What did he come down for?--To say goodbye before embarking for Australia. Where would he take ship?--She did not know; forgot: oh, now she remembered, it was Gravesend. Was she in the habit of seeing him?--Not often. He was never long together in one place, always travelling about. But was he in a fit state to travel? She did not know. She had thought he looked very ill and begged him to remain at least until to-day, but he said he could not as he might lose his ship. Did he come down to Foxwood by train?--Oh yes, by train: there was no other way. And go up by train I--To be sure.Whichtrain?--One of the evening trains: thought it was past eight when he left the Maze.
"It's the time for my mistress to take her egg," interposed Ann Hopley at this juncture, entering the room with the said egg in a tumbler. "I suppose she's at liberty to do it."
To this last little fling Mr. Strange answered nothing. Ann Hopley put the tumbler on the table and withdrew. Poor Mrs. Grey looked too weak and ill to lift it to her lips, and let it stay where it was.
"Can it possibly be true that you are still in search of Philip Salter?--here?" she asked, raising her troubled eyes to the detective's.
"It is quite true," he replied.
"And that you really believe him to be concealed here?"
"Madam, I could stake my life upon it."
She shook her head in feeble impotence, feeling how weak she was to combat this fixed belief. It was the old story over again. Nevertheless she made one more effort. Mr. Strange was watching her.
"Sir, I do not know what to say more than I said before. But I declare to you once again, as solemnly as I can ever speak anything in this life, as solemnly as I shall one day have to answer before my Maker, that I know nothing of Philip Salter. He never was here at all to my knowledge, later or earlier. Why will you not leave me in peace?"
Mr. Detective Strange began to think that he should have to leave her in peace. Twice had he carried this fortress by storm to search at will its every nook and corner: and searched in vain. Armed with great power though he was, the law would not justify these repeated forcible entries, and he might be called to account for exceeding his duty. But the man was there--as surely as that the sun was in the heavens: and yet he could not unearth him. He began to think there must be caves underground impenetrable to the eye of man, with some invisible subtle entrance to them through the earth itself--and perhaps a subterranean passage communicating with Mr. Smith's abode opposite.
And so, the second search ended as the first had done--in signal failure. Once more there was nothing left for the detective but to withdraw his men and himself, and to acknowledge that he was for the time defeated.