Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Neither could Finch. Finch, who was given to talk incessantly, faithful servant though she was, did not cease expressing her wonder to Miss Hardisty. And Finch could make nothing of the ravings.

  “She seems to be for ever mixing Mr. Janson and master up together, as if they were having a perpetual quarrel. It’s odd that that should run in her mind.”

  “It would be very odd if her thoughts did not run on Mr. Janson, considering the circumstances,” returned Miss Hardisty with composure. “Poor Mr. Janson went straight out from her presence to his murder, as may be said, and she had to give evidence that he did. I do wonder whether the thousand pounds’ reward, offered by Mr. Yorke, will bring anything to light?”

  “It’s to be hoped it will,” said Finch. “I’d lay another thousand, if I had it, that it was some of the same gang. Wouldn’t you, ma’am? They are all returned convicts, it is said.”

  Miss Hardisty coughed. “Those returned convicts are, many of them, dreadful men, standing at nothing.”

  “What’s the oddest thing to me of it all,” cried Finch, “is, that master does not come. A fortnight to-morrow since my mistress was taken ill, and he has never been here!”

  “He does not know of it,” said Miss Hardisty, in her imperturbable manner. “With his wife in this insensible state, I deemed it useless to write to him. I shall write when she is a little better.”

  “I should write now if I knew where he was,” said Finch, independently. “But I don’t. He was not going to Saxonbury when he left here. His things were directed for London.”

  Maria survived the disease, and began slowly to improve. Olivia Hardisty, when the danger was over, wrote to Mr. Yorke to tell him of her illness, addressing the letter to his banker’s in London. Just a few lines, telling of the bare fact — she had been in danger, but was going on to recovery.

  Partial recovery came more speedily than they could have hoped. But with the recovery of body, all the distress of mind returned.

  “Take me from here,” implored the invalid of Miss Hardisty, the first day she sat up. “I cannot bear it. I seem to see the murder in every corner.”

  “You shall go, my dear, as soon as ever you are strong enough to bear the journey,” was the soothing answer.

  A few more days, and she was able to move into a sitting-room. Orders were given for their departure on the next day but one.

  “It might be to-morrow,” pleaded Maria, her wan face, beautiful in its attenuation, looking eagerly up from the pillows of her fauteuil.

  “We may not risk a second illness for you, Maria,” was the reply of Miss Hardisty. “Thursday will be the very earliest day that you must venture.”

  Maria sighed. She was feverishly eager to get away from Offord; to get back to Saxonbury; but a conviction every now and then arose in her heart that Saxonbury might prove even less tolerable. Her whole life — and she saw it — must be one of ceaseless terror; there could be no rest anywhere. Lady Saxonbury had been ill herself, and could not come to her in this illness. Maria was glad to be spared her presence: she seemed to turn with a sick feeling of despair from all whom she had ever known.

  “Squire Hipgrave’s asking for you, ma’am,” said Charlotte, putting her head inside the room door and addressing Miss Hardisty. “He is in the drawingroom.”

  Miss Hardisty rose, folded her work together, and descended, not acknowledging to herself that she felt glad to escape the monotony of the sick-room. Squire Hipgrave was standing at the window, looking out.

  “Good morning,” said he, turning to shake hands. “Mrs. Yorke’s better, I find. Will she be well enough to hear the news! We have caught the murderer of Mr. Janson.”

  A mist came over Olivia Hardisty’s sight. She felt her way to a chair. Did Squire Hipgrave mean the real murderer?

  “I thought I’d come and tell you the first thing,” continued the squire. “There’s not a doubt that Yorke’s thousand pounds has unearthed the fellow.”

  Miss Hardisty began to inquire into particulars: but she felt that her voice sounded sharp and shrill, “It was the man, King, who had been seen with the other two in the afternoon. While the two watched for young Louth, King thought he’d do a little business on his own account, and attacked Mr. Janson. He has been in hiding ever since.”

  “How is it known?” asked Miss Hardisty, feeling that it was not King.

  “One of the gang, attracted by the reward, has come forward to betray him. Quite a lad, the informer is, not more than sixteen. He has disclosed both the man’s crime and his hiding-place. They are not proof against money, these rogues — would sell their comrades for it, if the bribe’s a high one.”

  “Was he seen to murder him?” inquired Miss Hardisty.

  “No. I suppose not. I have heard nothing of that.”

  “Then, in point of fact, the guilt rests only on the confession of this lad?”

  “That’s all.”

  Miss Hardisty shook her head, leaving the squire to infer that she accepted his news, as he rose to depart. She did not say that she knew too much of the guilt of another, to believe him.

  Offord was up in arms, when the man, King, was brought in for his examination before the magistrate. That proceeding took place subsequent to Squire Hipgrave’s interview with Miss Hardisty.

  The informers testimony was to the following effect. That King had come home one night to the hiding-place of the gang, in a desperate fright. He accounted for it by saying that Cooke and Barnell (the two men taken) had planned an attack on young Louth, and that meanwhile he, King, went back to the village and set on to watch for Janson. He had heard that Janson often carried a good bit of money about him, received as fees. King stole into Janson’s garden, and there waited, knowing it was the entrance he often used. In less than a quarter of an hour Janson came in, and he, King, attacked him. He struck him down; he believed that he killed him; and he was in the act of rifling his pockets when somebody came up to interrupt. He, King, attacked the fresh comer; but there he had his match. A scuffle ensued, and the stranger’s gun was broken in it; and he, King, finding he was getting the worst, got away, and made the best of his road home, arriving there in his fright. He had not intended to kill Janson, far from it; only to disable him while he eased him of his money. Neither had the other two thought to kill Louth, and that gentleman’s powerful resistance had led to the evil.

  Such was the testimony given by the approver, and there could be little doubt that such were the facts. Indeed, before that day came to an end, the facts were proved, by the confession of King. Prostrated by his capture, and especially by the treachery of his comrade, he appeared completely to lose heart and spirit. In a reckless, despairing tone, he said to the police that he might as well make a clean breast of it, and he described the circumstances more minutely than the informer had done. He could not make it out he said, how it was that Janson had died so easily; but he knew blows under the left ear had turned out awkward, before now. When asked who it was that came to the interruption, King replied that he did not know. It was a tall, strong man, dressed, so far as he could see for the fog, in a sporting suit; his tongue that of a gentleman.

  Olivia Hardisty shook with fear, had shaken ever since the man was captured. That King was the real murderer, she never believed: she had too much cause to attribute the crime to another. But a very confused account of the examination had been carried to Alnwick Cottage.

  “Do not acquaint Mrs. Yorke with this unpleasant stir about the murder,” Miss Hardisty said to Finch. “She is not in a state for such excitement.”

  Finch, however, judged differently, and Finch was one who liked to exercise her own will. She judged that it would be rather a pleasant divertisement to her mistress, to hear that there was some chance of Mr, Janson’s murder being avenged.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  A Tale for the Christmas Dessert-table.

  ON Thursday morning they were up betimes at Alnwick Cottage. Mid-day was to witness their departure from it. Even M
rs. Yorke was in the sitting-room by ten o’clock. It was a room adjoining her bed-room. Finch shook up the pillows of her easy-chair, and drew it near the window. The day was bright for winter, the landscape lovely.

  “Is everything packed?” asked Mrs. Yorke.

  “All’s ready,” replied Finch. “I have nothing to do between now and the time we start.”

  Perhaps it was because she had nothing to do that Finch judged it well to improve the time by telling her mistress of the capture of King, and his confession. “The man is took, and has confessed,” she said. “He admits having stopped inside Mr. Janson’s garden, and killed him.”

  Maria held a handkerchief to her face to hide the terror that settled there.

  “Who is it that is taken?” she gasped.

  “The man King, ma’am; one of that dreadful gang. It was thought that he did it from the first.”

  “Send Miss Hardisty to me,” murmured Maria.

  Miss Hardisty came. She told Mrs. Yorke the tale, so far as she knew it. Suddenly, in the midst of telling it, she gave a startled shriek: for there stood Mr. Yorke, inside the room door.

  He looked as if he had come off a journey. He had a great-coat on his arm, and was unwinding a warm cravat from his neck. Laying them on a chair, he advanced and stood before his wife.

  “Are you satisfied now, Maria?”

  What was she to believe? Was he guilty or not guilty? She looked up, a strangely yearning look on her white face, her thin hands clasped before her. Miss Hardisty, in her impulsive eagerness, laid hold of the arm of Mr. Yorke.

  “Were you not guilty?”

  “No!” he burst forth, a haughty flush dyeing his forehead. “I was the one who interrupted the wretched murderer at his work — as he has now confessed. Leave me a few minutes alone with my wife, will you, Miss Hardisty?”

  Miss Hardisty, walking quite humbly, from her sudden conviction of his truth and their own mistake, crossed the room and descended the stairs. Mr. Yorke, as before, stood in front of his wife, upright, his arms folded, and looking down at her.

  “Which is true, Arthur?” she gasped.

  “Need you ask?” was his rejoinder, spoken sternly.

  “But why did you not tell me at the time?”

  “Before I reply to that question, will you answer me one? If I had told you, if I had gone so far as to swear to my own innocence, would you have believed me?”

  No; she felt that she should not, then.

  “I saw that all the assertion I could have made on my own part would not dissipate the impression you had taken up,” resumed Mr. Yorke. “Therefore, I could but leave it to the elucidation of time. I did what I could. I offered a high reward. I placed the matter in the hands of the London detective police. When I left here, and you so pleasantly consigned me to a perpetual exile, my journey was direct to Scotland Yard. But that circumstances did favour your view, Maria, I might have felt inclined to take you at your word, and render our separation perpetual.”

  The scales seemed to fall from her eyes. A conviction of his innocence, of his present truth, seated itself within her. She leaned forward in her weakness, and sobbed aloud upon his breast.

  Mr. Yorke wound his arm fondly round her, giving her the explanation that he did not give her formerly. He had gone back to the village that evening, intending to beard Janson in his own house; to forbid his visits. He watched for Janson coming home, but he watched the front door. Janson meanwhile entered at the garden door, in the side lane, unseen by Mr. Yorke. Standing there quietly, he heard a groan, more than one, and penetrated to the spot whence they apparently came, the garden. The attacker of Mr. Janson turned and attacked him, and in the scuffle the gun was broken. The robber got away, and he, Mr. Yorke, stooped down to examine Janson. He had matches in his pocket, and struck them, and he saw that Janson was indisputably dead. He left him, and made the best of his way home; but he wandered out of the road in the fog, and got into a pool.

  “Why did you not give the alarm? why did you not speak of it?” reiterated Mrs. Yorke.

  “I can scarcely tell why,” replied Mr. Yorke. “My feeling against Janson that night was one of bitter anger. I should not have killed him, as the burglar did; but I am not sure that it was altogether a feeling of grief that crossed my heart, when I saw him lying there — dead.”

  Maria did not speak. Her face was buried.

  “I scrambled out of the pool and came home,” continued Mr. Yorke. “As I reached the gate, Crane and his wife were passing; they seemed in distress, in alarm, and I inquired the cause. ‘A poor gentleman had just been murdered,’ they said. I never supposed, and naturally, that they alluded to any murder but Janson’s. I supposed that the body had been found, and the news had spread. Do you remember,” he somewhat abruptly added, “that I called to you for a light, when I came in, and asked you to bring it up yourself?”

  “Quite well.”

  “My intention was to tell you of what had happened. Maria, I believe the feeling in my heart was to taunt you — that the man whom I had just seen with his hand in yours, was dead and out of the way for ever. In the few moments that elapsed between my calling and your appearance with the light, the mood changed, and I resolved to say nothing. I bundled my clothes, wet with the pool, into the long press, laid the broken gun upon them, and came down to dinner.”

  “Why did you lay them there, out of the way?”

  “As I said before, I can scarcely tell you. In my ill-feeling against Janson, I believe I resolved not to disclose that I had seen anything of the murder; to be entirely silent upon the point. For one thing, Maria — and I have felt ashamed of myself ever since — I was the worse for drink that evening. In my sober senses I should probably have acted very differently throughout; but I was not in my sober senses. I had drunk a good deal at Squire Hipgrave’s; he had two or three hard drinkers at his luncheon-table that day, hearty sportsmen, and I drank with the rest. Again, while I was waiting for Janson, near his house, I turned into a public-house and drank more — brandy-and-water. You must have seen that I had taken too much.”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Afterwards there came that unhappy suspicion, through my having mixed up the one murder with the other. That suspicion did attach to me, I could not help seeing, and I was really thankful to Olivia Hardisty, and to Henry Yorke, for helping me to a way out of it. To have tardily confessed, then, to what I had seen, would never have done; it might only have brought suspicion more tangibly upon me. People would have asked what brought me in Janson’s garden.”

  “Arthur,” she said, raising her white face, “you might have confessed to us at home.”

  “With what chance of receiving credence?”

  It was the old question. An unsatisfactory one now.

  “I judged it better to bide my time,” said Mr. Yorke. “We will have Henry to spend Christmas with us, and make it a Christmas tale for after dinner. I’ll give it them at dessert. I suppose I may come home to Saxonbury again?”

  She was crying softly and silently, happy tears now. Mr. Yorke held her closer, and bent to kiss them away. “I think you have saved my life, Arthur,” she whispered.

  “You were going to Saxonbury to-day, were you not?”

  “Yes; by the mid-day train.”

  “But I perceive you are not fit to travel. Shall we stay on here a few days, and see a little more of this strange drama played out?”

  “Oh yes, if you please,” she readily answered.

  “All the places in the world seem glad to me now. I have had brain fever, Arthur.”

  “I know you have. I had a bulletin up daily of your progress.”

  “From whom?” she inquired, in surprise.

  “From the physician. Had he warned me of danger, I should have hastened to you. He thought I was detained in town by law business, and could not leave. Maria,” he more gravely added, “never you doubt my care and love again.”

  “I have never doubted them,” she replied. “I Arthur
,” she broke off, gazing at him earnestly, “it is I who ought to enjoin that. The cloud fell on your mind, not on mine. Has it gone away?”

  “It has. I believe I was wrong, Maria. At any rate, it can never now return.”

  “Thank God!” she murmured. “Quite gone!”

  “Quite gone,” repeated Mr. Yorke, regarding the remark as a question. “If another thousand pounds would bring Janson back to life, Maria, I would freely give it.”

  “Shall you speak abroad, now, of what you saw of the murder?”

  “No. It would answer no end, for I could not swear to the assailant. I disclosed the whole to one of the head police in London; but there’s no necessity to proclaim it further for the benefit of the public. We will keep it as a secret. A less weighty one than that you have been hugging to your heart, Maria.”

  A sudden pushing open of the room door. Master Leopold flew in boisterously, followed by Finch, grumbling. “Papa! papa!” shouted the boy in his delight. And Mr. Yorke caught him in his arms.

  Finch stood transfixed with surprise. “Why, sir, when did you come?”

  “Ten minutes ago,” said Mr. Yorke. “I am telling your mistress that she will do well to remain on here a little longer, until she shall be more fit to travel.”

  “You can unpack, Finch,” said her mistress.

  “Well, that is a bother!” cried Finch, who was in the habit, from long service, of saying pretty well what she pleased. “Have you come to stay too, sir?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Yorke.

  But they got home to Saxonbury in time for the Christmas dinner. And as to Offord, it has not done talking yet of the tragedy enacted on that foggy night, or of the flight the whole village made to the county town to see the three men executed.

  The double murder it is called to this day.

  THE END

  THE SHADOW OF ASHLYDYAT