Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Witness to the Deed > This page
Witness to the Deed, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 38. The Blind Lead |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. THE BLIND LEAD As that horrible, rustling sound behind the wainscot was heard, the two hardened men in the old passage shrank away to door and end, while a cold sweat bedewed Guest's face, and his breath felt laboured. Then there was a reaction. Old memories flashed through his brain, and he seized Stratton's arm. "Old friends," he muttered. "I can't forsake him now." The arm he gripped felt rigid and cold, but Stratton made no movement, no sign, and at that moment they saw the sergeant flash the light down into the sarcophagus-like receptacle; for, thanks to the manufacturers, our baths are made as suggestive of a man's last resting-place as they can be designed. There was utter silence then for a moment. Then the sergeant uttered a low whistle and exclaimed: "Well, I _am_ blessed!" "Ain't he there?" said the workman, from the door. "Come and look, Jem." Jem went in slowly, looked down in the bath, which was lit up by the rays from the lantern, and then uttered a low, chuckling sound, while Guest tried to make out the meaning of the strange expression, dimly seen, on his friend's face. For Stratton's eyes showed white circles about the irises, as he now leaned forward to gaze into the bath. Guest was the last to look into the white enamelled vessel, one-third full of what seemed to be water, but from the peculiar odour which rose from the surface, evidently was not. Stratton was silent; and in the strange exultation he felt on seeing that all the horrors he had imagined were vain and empty, Guest shouted: "Bah! What cock-and-bull stories you policemen hatch!" The sergeant, who had been regularly taken aback, recovered himself at this. "Come, sir," he cried; "I like that. You come to us and say your friend's missing, and you think that he is lying dead in his chambers. 'All right,' we say--" "Wrong," cried Guest with a laugh, which sounded strange and forced. "So it is, sir--wrong," said the sergeant. "We come and do our duty, and I follow up the scent as clear as clear, right up to this spot; and I put it to you gents, as gentlemen, oughtn't your friend to have been murdered and a-lying there?" "Well," said Guest, with another forced laugh, as he glanced uneasily at Stratton; "it did look suspicious, and you worked it all up so theatrically that I was a little impressed." "Theatrical! Impressed, sir! Why, it was all as real to me; and I say again your friend ought to be lying there. What do you say, Jem?" "Cert'nly." "But he is not," said Guest sharply; "and it has all been a false alarm, you see, and I'm very, very glad." "Course you are, sir, and so are we," said Jem huskily. "Don't 'pologise. Don't make a bit o' diffrens to us. We're paid all the same." "Of course," cried Guest, keeping up the position of leader, for Stratton stood gazing down into the bath like one in a dream. "There, sergeant, we are very much obliged, and it's all right; so your man had better screw down the bath lid again." "But it isn't all right, sir," said the sergeant testily, and he gave his ear a scratch. "I don't like giving up just for a check." Guest shivered. "I've got as far as here, and I put it to you; the gentleman ought to have been in that thing, and he isn't." "That's plain enough," said Guest hurriedly. "Then where is he?" "In the country, I suppose, collecting." "That's your opinion, sir. P'r'aps your friend'll speak. What do you say, sir?" "Nothing," said Stratton, with an effort. "There is nothing to say," said Guest sharply. "Queer for this place to have all been screwed up--both, the door and the bath." "Oh, no; I see why," said Guest quickly. "Bad smells, perhaps, from the waste pipe--sewer gas." "Don't smell like bad gas," said Jem, sniffing about and ending by dipping a finger in the bath, and holding it to his nose, after which he gave a peculiar grunt. "Well?" "Sperrits." "Nonsense, man!" cried Guest. "What! That?" "That's sperrits, sure enough, sir," said the man, dipping his finger in the bath again. "Open that there lantern, pardner." The sergeant obeyed, and his companion thrust in his finger, for it to be enveloped directly with a bluish flame. "Mind what you're doing," said the sergeant hastily, "or we shall have the whole place a-fire." "All right, pardner. Sperrits it is, and, I should say, come in them cans." He gave one of the great tins a tap with his toe, and it sent forth a dull, metallic sound. "Very likely," said Guest. "Our friend is a naturalist, and uses spirits to preserve things in." "Look ye here," said the workman oracularly, and he worked one hand about as he spoke. "I don't purfess to know no more than what's my trade, which is locks and odd jobs o' that sort. My pardner here'll tell you, gents, that I'll face anything from a tup'ny padlock up to a strong room or a patent safe; but I've got a thought here as may be a bright 'un, or only a bit of a man's nat'ral fog. You want to find this gent, don't you?" "Yes," said Guest; and the tone of that "yes" suggested plainly enough, "no." "What have you got in that wooden head of yours now, Jem?" growled the sergeant. "Wait a minute, my lad, and you'll hear." "There's no occasion for us to stop here," said Guest hurriedly. "On'y a minute, sir, and then I'll screw down the lid. What I wanted to say, gents, is: haven't we found the party, after all?" "What!" cried Guest. "Where?" "Here, sir. I don't understand sperrits--beer's my line; but what I say is: mayn't the gent be in there, after all, in slooshun--melted away in the sperrits, like a lump o' sugar in a man's tea?" "No, he mayn't," said the sergeant, closing the lid with a bang. "Don't you take no notice of him, gentlemen; he's handled screws till he's a reg'lar screw himself." "But what I say is--" "Hold your row, and don't make a fool of yourself, mate. Get your work done, and then go home and try experiments with a pint o' paraffin and a rat." The man uttered a growl, and attacked the bath lid angrily, screwing it down as the light was held for him, and then going with the others into the sitting room, where he soon restored the old door to its former state, there being no sign, when he had finished, of its having been touched. Then, after a glance round, with Brettison's portrait still seeming to watch them intently, the outer door was closed, and the little party returned to Stratton's chambers, where certain coins were passed from hand to hand, evidently to the great satisfaction of the two men, for Jem began to chuckle and shake his head. "Well," said the sergeant; "what now?" "I was thinking, pardner, about baths." "Yes, yes," said Guest hurriedly; "but that will do." "Yes, sir, I'm going; but there's your gents as goes and breaks the ice in the Serpentine, and them as goes to be cooked in a hoven, and shampooed; and you pull your strings and has it in showers, and your hot waters and cold waters; but this gent seems to have liked his stronger than anyone I ever knowed afore. I say, pardner, that's having your lotion, and no sham." "Pooh!" said the sergeant. "Look here," said Guest quickly, and he slipped another sovereign into the sergeant's hand, "this has all been a foolish mistake. I was too hasty." "Only did your duty, sir," replied the man. "It was quite right, and I'm glad, for all concerned, that it was a mistake." "You understand, then; we don't want it to be talked about in the inn, or--or--anywhere, in fact." "Don't you be afraid about that, sir," said the man quietly. "I don't wonder at you. It did look suspicious, but that's all right, sir. Good-night, gentlemen both." "But your man?" "Close as a nut, sir; aren't you, Jem?" "Rather," said that personage, with a growl. "Night, sir." He slipped out, and the sergeant followed. As Guest was closing the door upon him, he whispered: "Quite upset your friend, sir. Why, he turned ghastly; couldn't have looked worse if we'd found the--" "Exactly. Bad health," said Guest hurriedly. "Good-night." And he closed both doors; and then, with a peculiar sensation of shrinking, turned to face Stratton where he stood by the fireplace. _ |
||