by Marion Bryce
Julia had listened with absorbed interest.
“I think it is wonderful,” she said, “that you should have gone through all that for my sake. I shall always try to deserve it, my dear. Was it all, all for me, that you did it, truly?”
“Yes,” Mark assured her, gruffly monosyllabic.
“But how was it,” she asked caressingly, “that Sir David’s footprints were found all over the rose-bed. What was he doing there?”
“That was an afterthought,” Mark admitted. “It was a top-hole idea. After every one had gone upstairs, I crept down and got my Mannlicher from where I had hidden it, and took it to the gun-room, where I cleaned it and put it in its usual place. It was lucky for me that David had left his weapon dirty. It was jolly unlike him to do it. I was thinking what a good thing it was, and how well things looked like turning out—for I thought I could manage the girl if she was able to prove that she really was a McConachan—and it struck me I ought to be able to contrive that the business should look a bit blacker against poor old David. Every one knew he’d had a row with Uncle Douglas about his beastly dog, and if I could only manufacture a little more evidence against him I knew I should be pretty safe, one way and another. I was going back to the garden to put by the gardener’s plank, when I thought of using his boots. It didn’t take long to find them among all the boots used that day by the household, which were ranged in a row in the place where they clean them in the back premises. His bootmakers’ name was in them. I took them, and when I got to the garden door I put them on, and went out and trampled about among the roses till I was pretty sure that even the blindest country bobby couldn’t fail to notice the tracks I’d left, though of course I couldn’t see them myself in the dark. Then I got the plank out of the hedge and put it away where I’d found it. After that, I took the boots back, and went to bed; and very glad I was to get there. Now you’ve heard the whole story.”
“How clever you are,” murmured the girl. “There’s no one like you,” she said, “no one.” Mark smiled rather fatuously. He evidently shared her opinion that his brains were something slightly out of the way. “And everything happened just as you’d planned,” she went on admiringly. “They suspected Sir David from the first. I should have, myself, if I hadn’t known it was you who had done it.”
“Yes,” said Mark, “they suspected him, the silly idiots! They might have known he hasn’t the initiative to do a thing like that. And the girl can’t prove her relationship to Uncle Douglas, just as I expected. I thought there might be some difficulty about that. But I wish I could find the will he made in her favour. I should feel safer then, for she told me he said he’d worded it so that she should get the money whether she was proved his daughter or not. And who knows what other mad clauses he may have put in it. Lately, for some reason I could never make out, I felt sure he had changed towards me. He let fall a hint one day that his legacies to me were conditional on my good behaviour. I don’t feel easy about it at all. Some one must have been telling him things—poisoning his mind. But I’ve hunted high and low, and found nothing. I’m sick of looking over musty old bills.”
“Oh, we shall find it between us now,” said Julia hopefully. “I wish I had some idea where the list I want is, though,” she added.
“There’s that detective, too,” pursued Mark. “That fellow Gimblet. I’m rather fed up with him. Not that he seems any use at his work, though he’s supposed to be rather first-class at it, I believe.”
“Gimblet! Is that who it is? Mrs. Clutsam told me a London detective was here, but I didn’t know who it was. I have met him before, and found him very easy to manage. I don’t think you need be afraid of anything he may do.”
“I shall be glad when he’s off the place, anyhow,” said Mark.
“I shall be glad when the whole business is over and forgotten,” Julia rejoined. “I wish we could be married at once, Mark darling. But why can’t it be given out that we are engaged. I don’t understand why we should keep it a secret now. I can’t stand seeing so little of you as I have these last few days.”
“Be patient, darling, wait just a little longer. There are reasons, as I have told you. I must get my financial affairs straight, for one thing, before I allow you to tie yourself to me. Suppose I turn out to be a beggar? I couldn’t let you marry me then, you know.”
“Mark!” Julia’s voice was full of reproach. “You know perfectly well how little I care about your money. I would be only too glad to marry you if you hadn’t a penny. But perhaps you mean that if you were poor you wouldn’t want to burden yourself with a wife?”
“You know how I adore you, Julia. How can you suggest such a thing? I couldn’t even dream of a life without you. You show how little you know me. But, believe me, it is wisest to wait a short time longer before we are publicly engaged. You must take my word for it, and not made me unhappy by imagining such cruel things. Come, let us look for this list of yours. What were you doing—searching among the books?”
“Yes,” said she, rising, as he went towards a bookshelf, and following him. “I thought it might be hidden between the leaves of one of these old volumes. One reads of such things.”
“I wonder,” he said absently. “The will, too, may be here. Is there a Bible anywhere? I believe that’s a favourite place of concealment. Then, when the heir is virtuous and reads his Bible, he gets the legacy, you know; while, if he isn’t, he doesn’t. A sort of poetic justice is meted out. If I find it in that way I shall take it as a sign that I am really the virtuous one and that Heaven absolves me from all blame.”
He spoke mockingly, but Julia answered very seriously:
“Of course you ought to have it; and if I don’t blame you, why should anyone else?”
“Well,” he said after a pause, “at all events I mean to get it, whether or no, if I have to pull down every stone of the place. That reminds me,” he added, “where is the secret entrance you use? Through this old clock? Who would have thought it?”
In a moment Juliet realized that she was going to be caught. She had been so absorbed in listening to the dreadful revelations that had been made during the last half-hour that not till now had she considered how dangerous was her position.
As he spoke, Mark threw open the door of the clock case. Too late, she turned to fly; he caught her by the arm and, with a stifled oath, dragged her into the room.
“How long have you been there?” he cried, and fell to swearing horribly; while Julia stood by, not speaking, but looking at Juliet with an expression which frightened her more than all his violence.
CHAPTER XX
It did not occur to Juliet to deny that she had overheard their talk. She had been found in the act of spying on them, and it was inconceivable that they should believe she had not done so. Besides, she was raging at the thought of what she had heard, and her anger gave her a courage she might otherwise have found it hard to maintain.
“I have been there all the time,” she declared stoutly. “I heard all you said, you wicked, wicked man. A murderer! Oh, how horrible it all is!”
Julia laid a hand on Mark’s arm.
“She will tell what she knows,” she said, trembling.
“She shall not,” Mark stammered furiously. He seemed to be half suffocating with rage. “She shall not go unless she swears to say nothing. Swear it, I say!”
He seized Juliet by the shoulder and shook her violently to emphasize his words.
“I won’t swear anything of the kind,” she retorted, trying to break from his grasp. “Do you suppose you can kill me, too, without being found out? There is a detective here now, and Sir David Southern is not at hand to lay the blame on. You coward! How dare you touch me!”
The truth of her words seemed to strike home to Mark, for he left go of her suddenly, and stood, biting his nails and scowling, the picture of irresolution and malignance.
Juliet lost no time in following up any advantage she might have gained.
“I can’t help knowing that y
ou care for him,” she said, addressing herself to Julia, “though I wouldn’t have listened to that part if I could have helped it. But how can you? How can you? I can’t understand how you can feel as you do about killing people, but at least if you did such a thing you would imagine it was for the good of your country, while this man thinks of nothing but his own selfish ends. Money, that is all he wants! How can you condone such a crime as his? To kill Lord Ashiel, that good, kind man who had treated him like a son all his life, who did everything for him. And just for the sake of money! It’s not even as if he wanted it really. He’s not starving. He had everything, in reason, that he wanted. If he needed more, urgently, I believe he had only to tell his uncle, and it would have been given to him. Oh, it is beyond all words! He must be a fiend.”
Indignation choked her. She spoke in bursts of trembling anger, her words sounding tamely in her own ears. All she could say seemed commonplace and inadequate beside the knowledge that this man was her father’s murderer.
Even Julia, indifferent to every aspect of the case that did not touch upon her relations with her lover, was shaken by the scornful disgust with which the broken sentences were poured forth; and, if her infatuation for Mark was too complete to allow her to consider any action of his unjustifiable, still she realized, perhaps for the first time, the feelings with which other people would view the thing that he had done.
“You don’t understand him,” she faltered. “He didn’t want money for himself alone. It was for me he did it. He was too proud to ask me to marry a poor man. You could never understand his love for me. How can I blame him? How many men would run such risks for the girl they loved? I am proud, yes proud, to be loved like that!”
“You believe his lies,” Juliet cried contemptuously. “You believe he loves you so much? Why it is not two days since he came to me and asked me to marry him.”
“What!” Julia spoke in a panting whisper. Her face had suddenly lost every particle of colour. “Say it’s not true,” she begged, turning miserably to the man.
He made an effort to deny the charge.
“Of course. Not a word of truth in it. Damned nonsense,” he blustered.
But his eyes fell before Juliet’s scornful gaze, and Julia was not deceived.
“It can’t be true, oh, it can’t,” she moaned. “No man could be so vile.”
“No other man could,” Juliet amended. In spite of herself she was sorry for the girl, whose stricken face showed plainly the anguish she was undergoing. “Forget him, Julia; he is not worthy to tie your shoe-lace. He came to me after they had taken David away, and asked me first if I would take his inheritance even though I couldn’t prove my birth, which he must have known perfectly that I should never dream of doing, and then proposed I should marry him, saying that he was very fond of me, and that in that way justice would be done as regards Lord Ashiel’s money, however things turned out for me. I thought it honourable and generous at the time, and so did Lady Ruth when I told her—oh yes, she knows about it and can tell you it is true—but now I see that all he wanted was to be on the safe side, and, if I had accepted him and had turned out to have no claim upon his uncle’s fortune, he would have broken the engagement on some easy pretext. Can you deny it?” she demanded of Mark.
But he could not face her, though he made an effort again to brazen it out.
Every word she had spoken seemed to strike Julia like a blow. She shrank quivering away, and threw herself down on to a chair, her face hidden in her hands. Juliet went to her and touched her gently on the shoulder.
“Don’t think of him any more,” she said. “Presently you will hate yourself for having cared for a murderer. Just now, I know, your love for him makes you gloss over his crimes, but when you are yourself you will see how odious they are. Poor Julia, I hate to hurt you so, but it is better, isn’t it, that you should know? You will forget this madness. He is not worth your wasting another thought on. Think how shamefully he has deceived you. Think of all his lying words, of how he told you he had never looked at another woman.”
Julia raised her head and showed a face, white as chalk, in which the great brown eyes seemed to burn like fires of hatred.
“Yes,” she said in a hard, even voice. “I am thinking of it. I shall not forget him. No. Instead, I shall think of him day and night, be sure of that. I shall laugh as I think of him; laugh at the thought of him in his place in the dock, or in his prison cell. I shall laugh when I give my evidence against him, and most of all I shall laugh on the day when he is hanged. If his grave is to be found, I shall dance upon it. Oh, it will be a merry day for me, that day when the cord is tightened round his false neck!”
She went near to Mark, and hissed the last words into his face, leaning forward, with one hand on her own throat. But he seemed to shrink less before her vindictive passion than he had under the colder scorn of Juliet’s denunciations.
“Come, Juliet,” said Julia, calming herself a little, although hate was still blazing in her eyes, “let us leave this place. We must send for the police.”
“Julia,” said Mark, stepping forward, and speaking with some of his former assurance, “you condemn me unheard. Why should you believe this girl before me? It is not like you, Julia. It is not like the girl I love. For I do love you, darling, in spite of what you may think; and, till a few moments ago, I thought you loved me too. But I see now what your love is. One whiff of suspicion, one word of accusation, and without proof or evidence you condemn me, and your so-called affection disappears. Julia, I think you have broken my heart.”
Juliet gave vent to a derisive sound which can only be called a snort; but it was plain that his words, and more especially the manner of sad yet tender reproach in which they were uttered, were not without their effect on the other girl. Her eyes wavered uneasily; she twisted and tore at her handkerchief.
“I have heard what you have to say,” she murmured. “I saw that you could not deny what Juliet told me.”
“I did deny it. But what is the use of talking to you when you are in such a state? You are determined beforehand to disbelieve me. And I have no wish to justify myself to Miss Byrne, though I am willing to swallow my pride and do so to you.”
“Well,” she said after a moment’s hesitation, “justify yourself if you can. No one shall say I would not listen. God knows I shall be glad enough if you can clear yourself.”
“To begin with,” said Mark, “I admit that, superficially, there is truth in what you have heard. But only superficially, for the person I deceived was not yourself but this young lady. I certainly, as she suggests, never had the slightest intention of marrying her. For one thing I was absolutely certain she would refuse me, but it seemed a good precautionary move to make what might appear a generous proposal, and at the same time get a sort of mandate from the possible heiress herself to stick to my uncle’s fortune. You may be sure I should never have given it up, in any case, but it is as well to keep up appearances. The business was only a move in the game I am playing, and no more affects the sincerity of my love for you than any of the social equivocations we all find necessary from time to time. I love you, Julia, and you alone. How can you doubt it? I love you so much that I am willing to overlook your want of confidence in me, and to forgive the cruel things you said just now. Darling, how can I tell you, before a third person, what I feel for you? You are everything to me; and, if you no longer love me, I don’t care what happens. Give me up to the police if you like. The gallows is as good a place as another, without your love.”
Long before he had finished, all traces of resentment had vanished. When he ceased speaking, she gave in completely, and threw herself upon his breast, sobbing passionately, and begging his forgiveness for having doubted him for an instant, while he soothed and comforted her in a low tone. Juliet did not know what to do or which way to look. The two stood between her and the door, and she felt an absurd awkwardness about trying to pass them. Was it likely she would be allowed to go out free to denounce t
hem? She was afraid of trying.
At last Julia was calm again, and there came a silence, during which the pair glanced at Juliet and then at each other.
“What’s to be done?” Julia asked at length, and then suddenly, without waiting for an answer, “I have an idea, Mark, that will save you. If her mouth can be stopped for a time, will you be able to get clear away?”
“I shall have to try, I suppose,” he replied, with a trace of his former sulkiness. “To think that everything should miscarry because of a slip of a girl!”
“You had better go to Glasgow and get on board some ship there which will take you to a place of safety. I shall have to stay behind till the matter of the list is settled one way or the other. But then, when I have reported to my superiors, I can join you, and we can begin life together in some far-off country. I shall be as happy in one place as in another with you, Mark; are you sure you will be, too, with only me?”
Mark hastened to reassure her on that point, but his tone as he said it did not carry conviction to Juliet. Julia, however, seemed satisfied.
“Miss Byrne can choose,” she continued. “Either she swears not to say a word till we are both safe away, or else we can shut her in the dungeon of the castle. I know where it is, in the wall of this tower. She will never be found there, and I can take her food from time to time till I am ready to join you. Isn’t that a good plan?”
