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Witness to the Deed, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 41. At Fault |
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_ CHAPTER FORTY ONE. AT FAULT It was from no dread of the consequences likely to ensue that Malcolm Stratton paused with the burning paper in his hand. He knew that he had but to drop it into the clear fluid beneath, for this to burst out into a dancing crater of blue and orange flames. He knew, too, that the old woodwork with which the antique place was lined would rapidly catch fire, and that in a short time the chambers would be one roaring, fiery furnace, and the place be doomed before the means of extinction could arrive. He had no fear for self, for he felt that there would be time enough to escape if he wished to save his life. But he did not drop the blazing paper; letting it burn right to his fingers, and then crushing it in his hand. "There is no reason," he muttered, as he turned slowly back to his room. "It would be madness now; there is nothing to conceal." He sank into his chair, and sat back thinking and trying to piece together all that had passed since the day when, full of life, joy, and eagerness, he was ready to hurry off to the church. But his long confinement, with neglect of self, and the weary hours he had passed full of agony and despair, had impaired his power of arranging matters in a calm, logical sequence, and he had to go twice to his bedroom to bathe his burning head. There was one point at which he sought to arrive--his present position, and what he should do next. It came to him at last, and then he worked himself up to the grasping of the facts, till a mist came over his brain, and all glided away, leaving his mind blank. For it was all one terrible confusion, mainly due to the fearful mental strain to which he had been exposed during the past few hours; and at last he sat there holding his throbbing brow, feeling that he could think of everything but the one point to which he strove. At one moment Guest's horrified face was before him, and in a puzzled way he felt that his friend had left him with the idea that he had slain Brettison, and that he ought to have made that portion of his trouble clear to him; but at that time it was as if he were fettered by the horrors of a nightmare-like dream. But he waved these thoughts aside. They were as nothing to the terrible perplexity he had to master, and the first step toward that mastery was to find Brettison, whom he had last seen on the morning appointed for the wedding, wishing him happiness and every good thing which could fall to a bridegroom's lot. And now? What did it all mean? How could he clear up the chaos which bade fair to wreck his brain. Brettison could not have returned; and yet how strange it all was! What could he do? One thing shone out, however, clearly; and that was the knowledge that he could come back here and stay without being haunted by the presence of a great horror close at hand. He even began to grasp the fact that, for a long time past, he had been needlessly shunning his rooms and living away in a morbid state, always dreading discovery; and opening his doors at every visit, fully expecting to find himself face to face with the police, waiting to trap him in his lair. How he had suffered! How he had stolen to his chambers at night, creeping up to his door furtively, and, after entering, examining the closet, and making sure that it had not been tampered with and opened in his absence. It had been a terrible period of agony, such as had turned him old before his time; and now he had discovered that his suffering and dread had been vain and empty; that he had stayed away from the inn for naught, unless all this was imagination; another of the horrible nightmare dreams by which he had been haunted ever since that dreadful day. At last he grew calmer, and felt able to look matters in the face. The great horror had passed away, and in so passing it had roused him to action. There was work to do, a strange complication to solve; and he settled in his own mind how that was to be done. He must find Brettison at once; and the great question was: Where could he be? Here was a grand difficulty at once. Where would a man like Brettison be likely to sojourn?--a man who ranged through the length and breadth of the country in pursuit of his specimens. In an ordinary way. But what would he be doing now and what had he done? Stratton shuddered, and pictured a strange scene, one upon which he dare not dwell; and, leaping up, he took matches and a candle with the intention of going to his friend's room to try and pick up the clue there; but by the time he reached his door he was face to face with the first obstacle. Brettison's door was locked again, and, without re-summoning the help they had had that evening, entrance was impossible. Taking the lamp he entered the bath-closet to try the old door at the end; but this was firmly screwed up again, and unless he broke through one of the panels, entrance was impossible that way. Stratton returned to his chair, hesitating to take so extreme a course; and sitting down he tried to think out a likely place for Brettison to have gone. As he thought, he called to mind various places where he knew him to have stayed in the past; and selecting one at haphazard--an old-world place in Kent--he determined to start for there at once, perfectly aware of the wildness of the scheme and how easily he might spend his life in such a chase, but there was nothing else to be done. He could trust no one--get no help. It must be his own work entirely. Brettison was master of his secret, and there could be no rest for him until the old man was found. He started at once, hurrying away from his carefully closed-up chambers by the northern gate, so that he should not be seen at the porter's lodge, and was half-way to the station when a thought assailed him, which made him turn back, suffering all the agony of a guilty man in dread of discovery. Brettison could not have taken that body away from the chambers; such a task was impossible without discovery. It must, after all, be hidden somewhere within his rooms. He turned into an embayment over a pier of the bridge he was crossing, and sat down to think. He knew Brettison's rooms so well--as well as his own. Where could the body be concealed? He mentally wandered from one room to the other, and paused in a little pantry-like place, peering into each nook and corner, and searching every article of furniture likely to contain a bulky object; but all in vain. Then he recalled the fact that the police officer--a man of experience-- had searched carefully and given the matter up. Still Brettison must have practiced a great deal of cunning for his friend's sake, and there was no knowing what he might have done. There were the floors of the rooms--boards might have been taken up, and concealment made between the joists; or there was the wainscot; some panel might have been taken out in front of a recess, and the body placed there. But Stratton shook his head, and his chin went down upon his chest in despair. There were sufficient reasons, for Brettison not choosing such a hiding-place as that. Detection in a short time was certain. "Seems impossible," thought Stratton; "but he must have taken it away." "Hadn't you better go home?" said a gruff voice. Stratton looked up, to find a burly policeman had stopped by his side, and was watching him keenly. "Go--go home?" stammered Stratton. "Yes, sir; that's what I said. You don't look well, and when people come and sit down here, feeling as you do, they sometimes lets their feelings get the better of 'em and jump off. Next moment they're sorry for it, and call for help, often enough when no help can come. You go home, sir, and have a day or two in bed. You'll come out again like a new man." Stratton frowned. "You are making a mistake," he said quietly. "I had no such thought as you imagine." "Glad of it, sir. You'll excuse me. You know that sort of thing happens here so often that we're obliged to keep a sharp lookout." Stratton's mind was made up once more, and he hastened off to the station, caught a later train, and in two hours was down in the old village, with its quaint ivy-covered hostelry and horse-trough ornamented with the mossy growth that dotted the boles of the grand old forest trees around. The landlady met him with a smile of welcome which faded after his questions. Oh, yes, she remembered Mr Brettison, and his green tin candle-box and bright trowel very well. He was the gentleman who used to bring home weeds in his umbrella; but it was a long time since he had been down there. It was only a week ago that she was saying to her master how she wondered that that gentleman had not been down for so long. But wouldn't he come in and have some refreshment? No, Stratton would not come in and have some refreshment, for he went back to town instantly. This was an example of many such blind ventures; all carried out in the face of the feeling of despair which racked him; and the time glided on, with hope goading him to fresh exertions in the morning, despair bidding him, in the darkness of the night, give up, and accept his fate. In course of time, Stratton visited every place in England that he could recall as one of Brettison's haunts, but always with the same result; and then in a blind, haphazard way, he began to wander about town. The consequence was that he was rarely at his rooms, and letter after letter was left for him by Guest, who reiterated his demands to see him, and asked for appointments in vain. But, in spite of the constant checks to which he was subjected, the desire to find his old friend only increased; and, after sitting half the night thinking what to do next, Stratton would snatch a few hours' sleep, and start off again, feeling sure that he had hit upon the right clue at last. For there was always some place that he had not searched. The greater museums and institutes he had visited again and again, and at all hours, hoping to find the old man buried in some book, or closely examining some specimen; but the minor places only came to mind by degrees, and day succeeded day in which he went about, haggard and weary-eyed, always looking for the slight, grey old man from whom he had parted on what was to have been his wedding day. And all the time he had a kind of presentiment that the old man was aware of the search being carried on after him, and was, consequently, hiding away, but, perhaps, keeping an eye upon his proceedings. It was impossible to give up, for he felt that the old man must at any cost be found; and at last he spent his days wandering dreamily about the streets, trying to solve the difficulty--watching the passers-by, and asking himself whether there were any means he had left untried-- whether there was any friend or acquaintance he could question as to his whereabouts. But Brettison had no friends or acquaintances, as far as he knew. He had been to his solicitor, who smiled, and said that his client was, in all probability, studying mosses or lichens in the Alps, and would come back some day; to his banker, who was reticent at first, and then, upon seeing his visitor's anxiety, readily stated that his cheques had been cashed quite lately, which proved him to be about, but where he could not say. Everything seemed to have been done, but still day after day Stratton traversed London streets in a never wearying search, trusting to chance to help him, though perfectly aware that he might go on for years and never meet the man he sought. Chance did aid him at last; for one day he had turned out of Fleet Street to go northward, and as he passed along the broad highway-- wishing that he could explain everything to Guest and bring other wits to his help, instead of fighting the weary battle in silence alone--he suddenly stepped out into the road to cross to the other side, to an old bookseller's shop, where the man made a specialty of natural history volumes. It was a shop where he and Brettison had often spent an hour picking out quaint works on their particular subjects, and he was thinking that possibly the man might have seen Brettison and be able to give him some information, when there was the rattle of wheels, a loud shout, and he sprang out of the way of a fast driven hansom. The driver yelled something at him in passing, by no means complimentary; but Stratton hardly heard it. He stood, rooted to the spot, gazing after the cab; for, in the brief moment, as he started away, he had caught sight of the pale, worn face of Brettison, whose frightened, scared gaze had met his. Then he had passed without making a sign, and Stratton was gazing after the cab in speechless horror, for upon the roof, extending right across, and so awkwardly placed that the driver half stood in his seat and rested his hands upon it with the reins, was a large, awkward-looking deal box, evidently heavy, for the cab was tilted back and the shafts rose high, as if the balance was enough to hoist the horse from the pavement. At last! And that scared look of the pale-faced man, and the strange, heavy case on the cab-roof, with every suggestion of haste, while he stood there in the middle of the road as if a victim to nightmare, till the quickly driven vehicle was too far off for him to read the number. Suddenly the power to move came back, and, dashing forward in the middle of the road, Stratton shouted to the man to stop. "He won't stop--not likely," growled another cabman, who had seen Stratton's escape. "Shouldn't loaf across the--Here, sir," he cried suddenly, as a thought flashed across his brain. "Hi! guv'nor; jump in--I'll ketch him for you." He whipped his horse up alongside of Stratton, who caught at the idea, and, seizing the side of the cab, sprang in. "Quick! Five shillings if you keep that cab in sight." The wide road was open, and pretty free from vehicles, and the horse went fast, but the cab in which Brettison was seated had a good start, reached the cross street, and entered the continuation of that which he was pursuing. Stratton's man drove up as a number of vehicles were crowding to go east and west, and the flow of those from north and south was stopped by a stalwart policeman; while raging at the sudden check, Stratton ground his teeth with rage. "All right, sir," came down through the little trap in the roof; "he'll let us go acrost directly, and I'll ketch up the cab in no time." They were not arrested much above a minute, but the interval was sufficient to give Brettison's cab a good start, and when leave was given to go, the case on the roof was invisible, and the question arose in Stratton's mind--which way had it gone? into one of the station yards, or straight on over the bridge into South London? He raised himself a little to peer over the horse's head, but he could see nothing, and turning round, he thrust up the trap. "Faster--faster!" he cried. "You must overtake it. Faster!" "All right, sir," shouted the man hoarsely; and crack! crack! went the long heavy whip on one and then on the other side of the well-bred but worn-out screw between the shafts. The result was a frantic plunge forward, and though the driver dragged at and worked the bit savagely, the horse tore on at a gallop for about fifty yards, with the cab swaying from side to side; then the tiny flash of equine fire died out, and the horse's knees gave way. Down it went with a crash. Stratton was dashed forward heavily against the curved splash-board, to which he clung, and the next thing he saw was the driver rising from somewhere beside the horse, that lay quite still now on its side, while shouts, the faces of people who crowded up, and the vehicles that passed on either side, all seemed dim, confused, and distant. Then bells of a curiously sharp, quick tone were ringing loudly in his ears. "Hurt, sir?" "Yes--no; I think not. Quick, stop that cab," said Stratton huskily; but, as he spoke, he knew it was in a confused way, and that for his life he could not have explained what cab. "It's far enough off by this time, sir," said a voice beside, him, "and if you ain't hurt, I am. Never went in training for a hacrobat. Here, Bobby, help us up with the fiery untamed steed. That's the second time he's chucked me over the roof. Wait a moment, sir, and I'll drive you on; we may ketch 'em yet. Don't do a man out of his fare." "Too late," was all Stratton could think of then. "I could not overtake it now." And in a dim, misty way he seemed to be watching Brettison hurrying away with that heavy, awkward case which contained-- "Yes," he muttered with a shudder, "it must be that." _ |
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