Читать книгу A Terrible Secret - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 21

"Inez," said her aunt, suddenly coming a step nearer, "a rumor has reached me—is it true?—that Juan is back—that he has been here?"

"It is quite true," her niece answered, without turning round; "he has been here. He was here on the night Lady Catheron first came."

"There is another rumor afloat, that there was a violent quarrel on that occasion—that he claimed to be an old lover of Ethel's, poor child, and that Victor turned him out. Since then it is said he has been seen more than once prowling about the grounds. For everybody's sake I hope it is not true."

Inez faced round suddenly—almost fiercely.

"And what if I say it is true, in every respect? He did come—there was a quarrel, and Victor ordered him out. Since then he has been here—prowling, as you call it—trying to see me, trying to force me to give him money. I was flinty as usual, and would give him none. Where is the crime in all that?"

"Has he gone?" was Lady Helena's response.

"I believe so—I hope so. He had nothing to stay for. Of course he has gone."

"I am glad of that, at least. And now, as it seems I can do nothing more at present, I will return home. Watch Victor, Inez—he needs it, believe me. I will return at the earliest possible moment to-morrow."

So, in the chill gray of the fast-coming morning, Lady Helena, very heavy-hearted, returned to Powyss Place and her sick husband's bedside.

Meantime matters were really beginning to look dark for Miss Catheron. The superintendent of the district, Mr. Ferrick, was filling his note-book with very ominous information. She had loved Sir Victor—she had hated Sir Victor's wife—they had led a cat-and-dog life from the first—an hour before the murder they had had a violent quarrel—Lady Catheron had threatened to make her husband turn her out of the house on the morrow. At eight o'clock, Jane Pool had left the nursery with the baby, my lady peacefully asleep in her chair—the Eastern poniard on the table. At half-past eight, returning to arouse my lady, she had encountered Miss Inez coming out of the nursery, and Miss Inez had ordered her sharply away, telling her my lady was still asleep. A quarter of nine, Ellen, the maid, going to the room, found my lady stone dead, stabbed through the heart. Miss Inez, when summoned by Hooper, is ghastly pale at first, and hardly seems to know what she is doing or saying. A very pretty case of tragedy in high life, Superintendent Ferrick thinks, pursing up his lips with professional zest, and not the first murder jealousy has made fine ladies commit, either. Now if that Turkish dagger would only turn up.

Two policemen are sent quietly in search of it through the grounds. It isn't likely they'll find it, still it will do no harm to try. He finds out which are Miss Catheron's rooms, and keeps his official eye upon them. He goes through the house with the velvet tread of a cat. In the course of his wanderings everywhere, he brings up presently in the stables, and finds them untenanted, save by one lad, who sits solitary among the straw. He is rather a dull-looking youth, with a florid, vacant face at most times, but looking dazed and anxious just now. "Something on his mind," thinks the superintendent, and sits sociably down on a box beside him at once.

"Now, my man," Mr. Ferrick says, pleasantly, "and what is it that's troubling you? Out with it—every little's a help in a case like this."

The lad—his name is Jimmy—does not need pressing—his secret has been weighing uneasily upon him for the last hour or more, ever since he heard of the murder, in fact, and he pours his revelation into the superintendent's eager ear. His revelation is this:

Last evening, just about dusk, strolling by chance in the direction of the Laurel walk, he heard voices raised and angry in the walk—the voices of a man and a woman. He had peeped through the branches and seen my lady and a very tall man. No, it wasn't Sir Victor—it was a much bigger man, with long black curling hair. Didn't see his face. It was dark in there among the trees. Wasn't sure, but it struck him it might be the tall, black-avised man, who came first the night Sir Victor brought home my lady, and who had been seen skulking about the park once or twice since. Had heard a whisper, that the man was Miss Inez's brother—didn't know himself. All he did know was, that my lady and a man were quarrelling on the evening of the murder in the Laurel walk. What were they quarrelling about? Well, he couldn't catch their talk very well—it was about money he thought. The man wanted money and jewels, and my lady wouldn't give 'em. He threatened to do something or tell something; then she threatened to have him put in Chesholm jail if he did. He, Jimmy, though full of curiosity, was afraid the man would spring out and catch him, and so at that juncture he came away. There! that was all, if it did the gentleman any good, he was welcome to it.

It did the gentleman a world of good—it complicated matters beautifully. Five minutes ago the case looked dark as night for Miss Catheron—here was a rift in her sky. Who was this man—was it Miss Catheron's scapegrace brother? Jimmy could tell him nothing more. "If you wants to find out about Miss Inez' brother," said Jimmy, "you go to old Hooper. He knows. All I know is, that they say he was an uncommon bad lot; but old Hooper, he's knowed him ever since he was a young'un and lived here. If old Hooper says he wasn't here the night Sir Victor brought my lady home, don't you believe him—he was, and he's been seen off and on in the grounds since. The women folks in the servants' hall, they say, as how he must have been an old sweetheart of my lady's. You go to old Hooper and worrit it out of him."

Mr. Superintendent Ferrick went. How artfully he began his work, how delicately and skillfully he "pumped" old Hooper dry, no words can tell. Mr. Juan Catheron was an "uncommon bad lot," he had come to the house and forced an entrance into the dining-room the night of Lady Catheron's arrival—there had been a quarrel, and he had been compelled to leave. Bit by bit this was drawn from Mr. Hooper. Since then, Jackson, the head groom, and Edwards, the valet, had seen him hovering about the grounds watching the house.

Mr. Ferrick ponders these things in his heart, and is still. This vagabond, Juan Catheron, follows my lady to Catheron Royals, is expelled, haunts the grounds, and a man answering to his description is discovered quarrelling with my lady, demanding money, etc., two or three hours before the murder. The window of the room, in which she takes that fatal sleep, opens on the lawn; any one may enter who sees fit. No one is about. The Oriental dagger lies convenient to his hand on the table. "Here, now," says Mr. Ferrick to Mr. Ferrick, with a reflective frown, "which is guilty—the brother or sister?"

He goes and gives an order to one of his men, and the man starts in search of Mr. Juan Catheron. Mr. Catheron must be found, though they summon the detectives of Scotland Yard to aid them in their search.

The dull hours wear on—the new day, sunny and bright, is with them. The white drawing-room is darkened—the master of Catheron Royals sits there alone with his dead. And presently the coroner comes, and talks with the superintendent, and they enter softly and look at the murdered lady. The coroner departs again—a jury is summoned, and the inquest is fixed to begin at noon next day in the "Mitre" tavern at Chesholm.

Lady Helena returns and goes at once to her nephew. Inez, in spite of her injunctions, has never been near him once. He sits there still, as she left him many hours ago; he has never stirred or spoken since. Left to himself he is almost apathetic in his quiet—he rouses into fury, when they strive to take him away. As the dusk falls, Lady Helena, passing the door, hears him softly talking to the dead, and once—oh, pitiful Heaven! she hears a low, blood-chilling laugh. She opens the door and goes in. He is kneeling besides the sofa, holding the stark figure in his arms, urging her to get up and dress.

"It is a lovely night, Ethel," he says; "the moon is shining, and you know, you like to walk out on moonlight nights. Do you remember, love, those nights at Margate; when we walked together first on the sands? Ah! you never lay like this, cold and still, then. Do get up, Ethel!" petulantly this; "I am tired of sitting here and waiting for you to awake. You have slept long enough. Get up!"

He tries to lift her. Horror struck, Lady Helena catches him in time to prevent it.

"Victor, Victor!" she cries, "for the love of Heaven put her down.

Come away. Don't you know she is dead?"

He lifts his dim eyes to her face, blind with the misery of a dumb animal.

"Dead!" he whispers.

Then with a low, moaning gasp, he falls back in her arms, fainting wholly away.

Her cries bring aid—they lift him and carry him up to his room, undress and place him in bed. The family physician is summoned—feels his pulse, hears what Lady Helena has to say, and looks very grave. The shock has been too much for a not overstrong body or mind. Sir Victor is in imminent danger of brain fever.

The night shuts down. A messenger comes to Lady Helena saying the squire is much better, and she makes up her mind to remain all night. Inez comes, pale and calm, and also takes her place by the stricken man's bedside, a great sadness and pity for the first time on her face. The White Room is locked—Lady Helena keeps the key—one pale light burns dimly in its glittering vastness. And as the night closes in blackness over the doomed house, one of the policemen comes in haste to Superintendent Ferrick, triumph in his face. He has found the dagger.

Mr. Ferrick opens his eyes rather—it is more than he expected.

"A bungler," he mutters, "whoever did it. Jones, where did you find this?"

Jones explains.

Near the entrance gates there is a wilderness of fern, or bracken, as high as your waist. Hidden in the midst of this unlikely place Jones has found the dagger. It is as if the party, going down the avenue, had flung it in.

"Bungler," Superintendent Ferrick says again. "It's bad enough to be a murderer without being a fool."

He takes the dagger. No doubt about the work it has done. It is incrusted with blood—dry, dark, and clotted up to the hilt. A strong, sure hand had certainly done the deed. For the first time the thought strikes him—could a woman's hand, strike that one strong, sure, deadly blow? Miss Catheron is a fragile-looking young lady, with a waist he could span, slim little fingers, and a delicate wrist. Could she strike this blow—it is quite evident only one has been struck.

"And besides," says Superintendent Ferrick, argumentatively to himself, "it's fifteen minutes' fast walking from the house to the gates. Fifteen minutes only elapse between the time Nurse Pool sees her come out of the nursery and Maid Ellen finds her mistress murdered. And I'll be sworn, she hasn't been out of the house to-day. All last night they say she kept herself shut up in her room. Suppose she wasn't—suppose she went out last night and tried to hide it, is it likely—come, I say! is it likely, she would take and throw it right in the very spot, where it was sure to be found? A Tartar that young woman is, I have no doubt, but she's a long way off being a fool. She may know who has done this murder, but I'll stake my professional reputation, in spite of Mrs. Pool, that she never did it herself."

A thin, drizzling rain comes on with the night, the trees drip, drip in a feeble melancholy sort of way, the wind has a lugubrious sob in its voice, and it is intensely dark. It is about nine o'clock, when Miss Catheron rises from her place by the sick-bed and goes out of the room. In the corridor she stands a moment, with the air of one who looks, and listens. She sees no one. The dark figure of a woman, who hovers afar off and watches her, is there, but lost in a shadowy corner; a woman, who since the murder, has never entirely lost sight of her. Miss Catheron does not see her, she takes up a shawl, wraps it about her, over her head, walks rapidly along the passage, down a back stairway, out of a side door, little used, and so out into the dark, dripping, sighing night.

There are the Chesholm constabulary on guard on the wet grass and gravel elsewhere—there are none here. But the quiet figure of Jane Pool has followed her, like her shadow, and Jane Pool's face, peers cautiously out from the half-open door.

In that one instant while she waits, she misses her prey—she emerges, but in the darkness nothing is to be seen or heard.

As she stands irresolute, she suddenly hears a low, distinct whistle to the left. It may be the call of a night-bird—it may be a signal.

She glides to the left, straining her eyes through the gloom. It is many minutes before she can see anything, except the vaguely waving trees—then a fiery spark, a red eye glows through the night. She has run her prey to earth—it is the lighted tip of a cigar.

She draws near—her heart throbs. Dimly she sees the tall figure of a man; close to him the slender, slighter figure of a woman. They are talking in whispers, and she is mortally afraid of coming too close. What is to keep them from murdering her too?

"I tell you, you must go, and at once," are the first words, she hears Inez Catheron speaking, in a passionate, intense whisper. "I tell you I am suspected already; do you think you can escape much longer? If you have any feeling for yourself, for me, go, go, I beseech you, at once! They are searching for you now, I warn you, and if they find you—"

"If they find me," the man retorts, doggedly, "it can't be much worse than it is. Things have been so black with me for years, that they can't be much blacker. But I'll go. I'm not over anxious to stay, Lord knows. Give me the money and I'll be off."

She takes from her bosom a package, and hands it to him; by the glow of the red cigar-tip Jane sees her.

"It is all I have—all I can get, jewels and all," she says; "enough to keep you for years with care. Now go, and never come back—your coming has done evil enough, surely."

Jane Pool catches the words—the man mutters some sullen, inaudible reply. Inez Catheron speaks again in the same passionate voice.

"How dare you say so?" she cries, stamping her foot. "You wretch! whom it is my bitterest shame to call brother. But for you she would be alive and well. Do you think I do not know it? Go—living or dead, I never want to look upon your face again!"

Jane Pool hears those terrible words and stands paralyzed. Can it be, that Miss Inez is not the murderess after all? The man retorts again—she does not hear how—then plunges into the woodland and disappears. An instant the girl stands motionless looking after him, then she turns and walks rapidly back into the house.