Daintree got his hat with alacrity, and together the gentlemen let themselves quietly out by the front door; nevertheless Claire heard them in her room, though her aunt, who was still with her, did not.
They walked between the same budding hedgerows and moonlit fields which Tom Erichsen and the wretched Blaydes had looked on earlier in the night. They passed within two hundred paces of the spot where the Captain’s body was even then lying dead and undiscovered. They woke a sleeping hamlet, and were sharply informed through an angrily opened window that Captain Blaydes had come home, but had dressed and left again in a hackney-coach, shortly after ten.
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No; but I heard him tell the coachman it was only a mile.”
The window was shut down. The pair returned. They had spoken little on their way to West End; not one word did they exchange on the way back; but Nicholas Harding shook a little at the knees, and his companion watched him shrewdly.
As they pushed open the gate, a light vanished from an upper window, to reappear in the hall. Daintree took the other by the arm, and whispered, “That’s Miss Harding! Now you will see if I was wrong.”
And, indeed, the door was open before they reached it, and Claire on the step, candle in hand, the tallow streaming in the draught, and dashing unheeded against the pink crape and the white satin which she had never taken off. Her face looked grey and old, with young eyes burning out of place.
“Well?”
Even the monosyllable was scarcely articulate.
“He is not there,” said Mr. Harding.
“He never came back to London!”
“Yes — he did. That’s just the point. He started to come to us about ten o’clock, and has never been heard of since.”
Claire stood mute before them, her face pale as ashes in the light of the candle, which she carried quite steadily now. She had trembled in her fear; she stood like a statue in its realisation; then, with a single moan, she turned away, and her candle passed steadily through the hall, and slowly and steadily up the stairs.
Mr. Harding seemed lost in his own reflections, when Daintree clutched him by the arm.
“What did I tell you as we came up to the house?”
Harding thought a little. “You said it was Blaydes. Well, if so, she shall never have him. But I only wish I knew where he was!”
“So do I,” said Daintree, viciously; and he held out his hand as they entered the hall; but Mr. Harding would not hear of his going to bed.
“For pity’s sake don’t desert me yet! There is no sleep for me this night. What can have happened to the fellow — between West End and this? What can have happened?”
“I neither know nor care.”
“Nor I — nor I — but a man can’t help his forebodings!”
And Harding shuddered as he shut the library door, and lit the fire with his own hands, though the night was so warm; and cowered over it till daylight, a ghostly satire on the loud, flamboyant, cocksure head of last night’s dinner-table.
The eye of the guest was on him till it dropped with weariness; and at sunrise they both retired.
Claire in her room had never closed an eye. She did not come down to breakfast, and her aunt presided in her stead.
Lady Starkie thought her brother and his guest a pair of wrecks, and did not wonder at it when they told her to what hour they had sat up. But that was all they did tell her; and the lieutenant-general’s widow departed for Bath in the forenoon, little dreaming what a storm was to burst within the hour.
When she was gone Mr. Harding ordered his coach for another expedition to West End. Daintree again accompanied him, and looking back as they drove away, saw a white face vanish from the window whence the light had disappeared on their return from the earlier pilgrimage overnight. He gnashed his teeth, but said nothing; and they drove on in a common preoccupation.
The fields were dazzling green in the sweet, hot sunshine; the hedgerows sparkled with a million emeralds; and up the hill to the right, beneath a row of horse-chestnuts clouded over with young leaves, the white trousers and shiny hats of a body of police caught without riveting Mr. Harding’s roving eye. The sun shone brilliantly upon the cool green spot where they stood; but yet another constable, with a tall companion in plain clothes, was descending the right-of-way, and reached the road-side stile as the coach passed.
“There seems to be something astir there,” observed Daintree, pointing to the group up above.
Mr. Harding glanced in the direction indicated, and then sat looking straight in front of him until the red roofs of West End rose above the hedge to the left.
At the cottage where Blaydes had lodged nothing had been heard as yet. The good wife was strenuously civil, as if to make up for any asperity in the night; but the gentlemen learned no more now than then. As they turned away, however, the wicket clicked, and they stood face to face with a police-officer and a dingy, tall civilian.
“The men we saw just now!” cried Daintree, as Nicholas Harding clutched his arm. “Do you know anything of Captain Blaydes, my man?”
“Was you looking for him?”
“Yes, we were; or, rather, this gentleman was.”
“Then you’ll never find him, sir, in this world.”
“What?” shrieked Harding; and he was more shaken by the truth than even the dead man’s landlady, who brought a chair from the kitchen, upon which Mr. Harding sat shaking in the sun, with his full-blooded face turned to purple, and the great jaw sunk upon his stock.
“He was a friend of my friend,” explained Daintree, below his breath; but Harding heard.
“A friend?” said he. “Heaven knows about that; but I expected him at my house last night — expected him every hour!”
The personage in plain clothes declared himself a detective from Scotland Yard, and told the landlady that he should require a few words with her alone. The pair then withdrew into the house; but the policeman remained outside, and sold his tongue for half a guinea. The two gentlemen thus learnt before mid-day all that appeared in that evening’s papers, with one addition and one exception. The addition was a confident assurance that the police were on the perpetrator’s track already. The exception was merely a description of the dead man’s stolen property, which was then being obtained within.
“Now, in such cases,” said Mr. Harding, feeling for another coin, “what is done with the dead man’s papers?”
“Well, first you’ve got to find ‘em,” replied the constable, with a grin.
“But in this case you have obviously found something; or how would you know who he was?”
“We found no papers, however.”
“No papers!”
“Not a scrap; but his linen was marked; and then we knew all about our gentleman. I’m sorry to say we’ve known all about him for some time. It was only the shocking state his head—”
“That will do,” said Daintree, bending over Mr. Harding’s chair. “You are ill, sir,” he whispered. “Let me take you home at once.”
Harding yielded, and tottered to his carriage, muttering, “I waited for him hour after hour; and this was why; and this was why!”
Claire was still upstairs on their return, and Mr. Harding nerved himself with a glass of brandy before going to her with the news. But it shook her less than it had shaken him. Her first question was the last to be expected by one as completely in the dark as Nicholas Harding. She wanted to know with what kind of weapon the crime had been committed. He told her (what the constable had told him) with a heavy ash stick, whereupon she nodded singularly, as much as to say that was what she expected. In fact she had divined the worst from the very beginning. But her apathy blinded him to everything else: he asked her how she could faint at a vague fear, and yet hear the terrible truth unmoved.
“You will know soon enough,” was Claire’s reply.
“But you seemed in such a state about poor Blaydes?”
“I was.”
“I
made sure he must be the one you cared for.”
“He? Poor fellow! Never for an instant.”
“Then who is it, Claire? Daintree has told me the answer you were foolish enough to give him; and now I insist on knowing who it is!”
“You must not insist now; you will know soon enough,” said she again. And not another word.
Mr. Harding was nonplussed; there was some new mystery here, and until he should find its key he decided to discuss Claire no further with the suitor on whose success his heart was still set. Indeed, he saw little more of Daintree that day, but drove into the City after luncheon, and was not back for dinner. Hearing this, Claire dressed hastily, and braved the guest across a solemn board, protected from familiar converse by the continual presence of a man-servant behind either chair. Yet Daintree could not avoid the tragic topic.
“I fancy that Mr. Harding must be making inquiries at headquarters,” said he. “Have you seen an evening paper?”
“No.”
“I have the Globe. It gives a pretty full account.”
“Do they know who did it?”
“Not yet.”
“Not his name?”
“No.” —
“Nor his appearance? Nor anything at all about him?”
“No, absolutely nothing as yet; but it is only a question of time.”
Claire sat without eating a bite, while her fixed eyes slowly filled. “Poor fellow — poor fellow — poor fellow!” she suddenly cried out. “I cannot believe—” and as suddenly she curbed her tongue.
“Well, what?” said her companion.
“That — he — is dead!”
Daintree darkened.
“So you were thinking of Blaydes!” he said bitterly. “I might have known — I might have known!”
CHAPTER XI
COALS OF FIRE
ALL this time there came no word from the master of the house, nor had the coach returned; but between nine and ten it did, and Mr. Harding was out and up the steps before it stopped.
In the hall he inquired for his daughter; she had gone upstairs; he rushed up instantly. Claire was waiting for him at her bedroom door. He thundered in and shut it behind him.
“They have got him!” cried Claire, with both hands to her heart.
“Got whom?” said her father, sharply. “Got whom, eh?”
Her face fell beneath the angry glitter in his eyes.
“The man — they want — for this frightful business,” said she lamely, and sank down upon a chair.
“And pray who is he? You seem to know!”
No answer, save twitching fingers, rocked body, lowered lids.
“If you were to hear it was that young Erichsen — would it surprise you very much? No, it Would not!” It had only stilled her. “And now I intend to know why not! You have thrown sand enough in my eyes; but your manner this morning told me something, and I am determined to know all there is to know — before — I — leave — this — room.”
And with no less emphatic deliberation the father strode to the door, locked it and pocketed the key; but was met on his return with such wild eyes and suppliant hands that even his harsh heart melted at the sight.
“Only tell me whether they have captured him,” she said, “and I faithfully promise to tell you all.”
“Well, then, they have not; but they precious soon will. Now keep your promise.” —
It was kept to the letter. She had been very wicked, she had deceived and disobeyed her father for months and years; but now she had her reward. She had been lonely at Win wood, so had Tom. They had just made friends when the fathers quarrelled; it was too hard for them to have to quarrel too; and Claire confessed that rough treatment had always stirred up rebellion within her, though never before to such purpose as then. So the friendship had continued, but had never been anything more until two years later, when Tom Erichsen was on the eve of sailing; and then — and then —
“I understand,” said Mr. Harding, sarcastically; “that’s quite enough. But why didn’t he sail? How did you know he hadn’t? And what was his connection with Blaydes?”
Claire told him of the chance meeting near the Park; of her letter, and the secret interview that was all her doing; of Blaydes’s perfidy to Tom, and of the latter’s quick discovery that his enemy was their friend; of her first refusal to give him the address, but her ultimate and fatal surrender of the same. All this she told without fear or further hesitation, extenuating nothing in her own defence, but as much as she could in defence of Tom. A true woman, she had her theory of the crime already, and was quite convinced it was correct. Tom had indeed killed his man — of that even she had never a moment’s doubt; but he had not killed him intentionally, or struck a blow until Blaydes had drawn his deadlier weapon. She simply did not believe that Tom had touched either his watch or his pin; somebody else had done that — very likely the man who found the body.
Mr. Harding quietly disabused her on these points. He had spent some time at Scotland Yard, as a friend of the deceased who could give information; but he had contrived to gain more. He had thus kept his lead of the town regarding the facts of the case; and Claire was struck dumb with horror when she heard of the guilty flight from the coachman’s house, and of the undoubted possession by Tom of the dead man’s watch and chain. The father put it plainly, but without unnecessary brutality; nor did he belabour her with reproaches now that he knew all. On the contrary, he spoke of the suspected murderer with none of the vituperative bitterness which she had often heard him lavish on the detested parson’s good-for-nothing son.
“But you see,” said he, “what has come of your folly! You have entangled yourself with a young fellow whose fate, if he be caught, one would rather not contemplate; you may even be called as a witness against him!”
“Against him!”
“You certainly would be if last night’s interview leaked out.”
“It never shall.”
“And if you told a jury all you have told me, about the address and all that, I am afraid it would hang him if nothing else did.”
“Hang Tom!”
“Well, Claire, it looks to me very like a hanging matter; it would need a very clever, and probably a very costly defence, to give him the ghost of a chance of having it brought in anything less.”
“Then he must have it!” cried Claire. “Oh, he never could have done it — wilfully! He must have the very best defence that can be got; but, oh! who will pay for it?”
“I am thinking of doing so myself,” replied Mr. Harding, quietly. “I don’t say I will, but I may.”
“You!”
And the girl was sobbing upon his breast, with her arms about his thick red neck, as they had not been for many a year now. He removed them, but almost gently, and told her not to jump at conclusions, as he had by no means made up his mind: indeed, let them first catch their man. But as the lad’s father had been his constituent as well as his enemy, on whom he had perhaps been a little hard, he thought that on the whole it might prove the right and proper thing to do. Claire was overwhelmed, not only with gratitude for a first gleam of comfort, but also with shame. All these years she had misjudged that magnanimous man, her own father; and what coals of fire was he heaping on her undutiful head! She cried herself to sleep with shame and hope; and that was when Tom Erichsen was flying south from Westbourne Park, with the police in full cry at his heels.
Next day was the Saturday, and Claire was almost herself again, to the outward eye. She was early afoot, and met the newspaper boy in the road; she had thus first sight of the Times; but it told her little that she had not learnt from Mr. Harding overnight. Tom was still at large, that was the chief thing; but to-day there was a full description of him, and its accuracy sickened the brave heart which beat and trembled for him every minute of every hour.
This day was complicated by the return from school of the elder children of the second family. Two were still in the nursery; but two were weekly boarders at a luxuriou
s seminary at Gunnersbury, and the tragic fate of Captain Blaydes was ordered to be kept from their young ears. This was difficult. The children were in evidence from the Saturday afternoon until the Monday morning. Then they were very fond of Claire, in whom they discerned a difference, and she would not tell them what it was. But on the Sunday morning, when they were all ready for church, and only waiting for Mr. Harding, in he came at the gate with a newspaper in his hand; and Claire ran forward to meet him; and she did not go to church with them after all.
Thomas Erichsen had been apprehended at Kew on the Saturday evening, and lodged for that night in the local lock-up. The bare fact was read by Mr. Harding in next day’s Dispatch, and by Claire in her father’s face, before she heard it from his lips at twenty minutes to eleven in the morning. The girl created no scene before the children, and thus made a still firmer friend of her father for the time being; but her mental torture admitted of no further surprise at his amazing attitude; she was grateful to him, but that was all. On the Sunday night he came to tell her that he had made inquiries, and that the prisoner had been removed to the cells at the Marylebone police-office, where he would come before the magistrate next day. On the Monday morning she gave him his breakfast early and alone; and he then assured her that he was going to see what could be done.
“But not a word of this to anybody,” he added, as the coach came around. “If I do anything, it may be best to do it secretly after all. But I shall first consult my lawyer. I don’t want Daintree, for instance, to know anything at all about it; he might misconstrue our interest in so near a neighbour; and I have already told him that we hardly ever saw and never spoke to young Erichsen in our lives. Do you hear me, Claire? You are to back me up in this, or I wash my hands of the whole affair. I have forgiven you freely for what is past; you must promise me to keep it rigorously to yourself, not only now, but hereafter always!” Claire promised.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 82
