Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  So far the search had not realized his expectations. On the contrary, it was so unsatisfactory as to be puzzling to his experienced mind. There had been no tracks or traces of Philip Salter; no indication that the passages were ever used; and the doors had opened at his touch, unsecured by bolt or bar.

  Taking a look round him while he strove to solve more than one problem, the detective slowly advanced along the garden. All the garden ground surrounding the house, it must be understood, whether useful or ornamental, was within the circle of the maze of trees.

  Turning a corner, after passing the fruit trees and vegetables, he came in view of the lawn and of the green-house; also of Ann Hopley, who was plucking some thyme from the herb bed.

  “Have you found what you were looking for, sir?” she asked, every appearance of animosity gone, as she raised her head to put the question when he came near.

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, sir, I hope you are satisfied. You may take my word for it that you never will.”

  “Think not?” he carelessly said, looking about him.

  “Any way, I am not sorry that you have been through them subterranean places underground,” she resumed. “My mistress and I have never ventured to look what was in them, and she has not much liked the thought of their being there. We got Hopley to go down one day, but his shoulders stuck in a narrow part, and he had to force ’em back and come up again.”

  The detective stepped into the green-house, and stood a moment admiring the choice flowers and some purple grapes ripening above. Ann Hopley had gathered her herbs when he came out, and stood with them in her hand.

  “If you’d like to take a few flowers, sir, I’m sure Mrs. Grey would not wish to object. Or a bunch of grapes. There’s some ripe.”

  “Thank you, not now.”

  He pulled open the tool-house door, only partly closed, and looked in on Hopley. The old man was cleaning it out. Sweeping the floor with a besom and raising a cloud of dust enough to choke a dozen throats, he was hissing and fizzing over his work.

  Hopley looked very decrepid to-day: his swollen knees were bent and tottering: his humped back was all conspicuous as he stood; while his throat was enveloped in some folds of an old scarlet comforter.

  “Mr. Hopley, I think,” said the detective, politely. “Will you please tell me the name of the gentleman that’s staying here!”

  But Hopley, bent nearly double over his work, took no notice whatever. His back was towards the detective; and he kept on his hissing and fizzing, and scattering his clouds of dust “He does not hear you, sir,” said Ann Hopley, advancing. “He’s as deaf as a post, and can make out no voice but mine: especially when he has one of his sore throats upon him, as he has to-day. For my part, I think these bad throats have to do with the deafness. He is always getting them.”

  Stepping into the midst of the dust, she shook her husband by the arm somewhat roughly, and he raised his head with a start “Here, Hopley, just listen a minute,” she screamed at the top of her voice. “This gentleman is asking you to tell him the name of the gentleman who is staying here — that’s it, is it not, sir?” — and Mr. Strange nodded acquiescence. “The name, Hopley, the name.”

  “I’ve never see’d no lady here but the missis,” said old Hopley at length, in his imperfect articulation, caused by the loss of his teeth, as he touched his broad-brimmed hat respectfully to the stranger, and looked up, leaning on the besom.

  “Not a lady, Hopley; a gentleman,” bawled Ann. “I’ve see’d no gentleman here at all.”

  “He is rather stupid as to intellect, is he not?” cried the detective to the wife.

  She resented the imputation. “Not at all, sir; no more than deaf people always seem to be.”

  “What gentleman be it?” asked Hopley. “Smith the agent comes for the rent at quarter-day, and Sir Karl Andinnian came over one morning about the well.”

  “Neither of those,” roared out Mr. Strange. “The gentleman that’s hiding here.”

  “Not them, Hopley,” called Ann in his ear. “The gentleman that’s hiding here, he says.”

  “Hiding where?” asked Hopley. “In them underground places? I never know’d as anybody was hiding in ‘em.”

  “Ask him if he’ll swear that no man whatever is in hiding here, Mrs. Hopley.”

  “The gentleman says will you swear that no man is in hiding here at the Maze?” repeated Ann, somewhat improving upon the question.

  “I’ll swear that there’s neither man nor woman in the place, sir, to my knowledge, hiding or not hiding, but us two and the missis,” was the answer, given directly to Mr. Strange, and as emphatically as his utterly toothless mouth allowed. “I swear it to my God.”

  “And you may trust him, sir,” said Ann quietly. “I don’t believe he ever told a lie in his life: much less took an oath to one. Hopley’s honest and straightforward as the day, though he is a martyr to rheumatism.”

  Mr. Strange nodded his head to the man and left him to his sweeping. The work and the hissing began again before he was clear of the door. In both the tool-house and the green-house no possible chance was afforded of concealment — to ascertain which had doubtless been the chief motive for the detective’s invasion of them.

  “I don’t believe the old man knows about it,” ran his thoughts; “but the woman does!”

  Ann Hopley carried her herbs in-doors, and began picking them. Mr. Strange, calling the policeman to his aid, made as thorough a search out of doors as the nature of the premises and the puzzling maze of trees allowed. There was a closed-in passage of communication through the labyrinth, between the back of the house and the outer circle: but it was built solely with a view to convenience — such as the bringing in of coals or beer to the Maze; or, as Ann Hopley expressed it, the carrying of a coffin out of it The detective had its doors unbolted and unbarred, and satisfied himself that it afforded no facility for concealment. Borrowing a candle of her, he went again to the secret passages underground, both policemen with him, to institute a more minute and thorough examination.

  There ensued no result And Mr. Detective Strange withdrew his men and finally departed himself; one mortifying word beating its unsatisfactory refrain on his brain:

  “BAFFLED.”

  CHAPTER XIII.

  At Scotland Yard.

  ONCE more on his weary way to London went Karl Andinnian, on the same weary business that he had gone before; but this time he was proceeding direct to the place he had hitherto shunned — Scotland Yard.

  The extreme step, taken by the detective Tatton, in searching the Maze, had alarmed Karl beyond measure. True, the unfortunate fugitive, hiding there, had managed to elude detection: but who could say that he would be able to do so another time, or how often these men of the law might choose to go in? The very fact of their not being actually in search of Sir Adam, but of a totally different individual, made it seem all the more unbearably cruel.

  In Mrs. Grey’s dire distress and perplexity, she had sent that same night for Karl — after the search — and he heard the whole that had taken place. Adam confessed he did not know what was to be done, or how avert the fate — recapture — that seemed closely impending; and Rose almost fell on her knees before Karl, imploring him with tears to try and save her husband from the danger. Karl took his remorse home with him: remorse arising from-the knowledge that he had brought all this about, he, himself, in his insane inquiries after Salter: and, after much anxious consideration, he resolved to go on the morrow to Scotland Yard.

  It was past noon when he reached his destination. After he had stated confidentially the nature of his business — that it was connected with the search after Philip Salter, then being carried on at Foxwood by Detective Tatton — he was told that it was Mr. Superintendent Game who must see him upon the point: but that at present the superintendent was engaged. Karl had to wait: and was kept waiting a considerable time.

  Could Karl’s eyes have penetrated through two walls and an intervening room,
he might have been greatly astonished to see the person with whom the superintendent was occupied. It was no other than Tatton himself. For the detective, taking a night after the search to think over matters, just as Karl had done, had come to the determination of placing the history of his doings at Foxwood before his superiors, and to leave with them the decision whether he should go on with his search, or abandon it. Accordingly, he also had proceeded to London that morning, but by an earlier train; and he was now closeted with Mr. Superintendent Game — who had given him his original instructions, and had, specially, the Salter affair in hand — and was laying before him a succinct narration of facts, together with his various suspicions and his bafflings. Before the interview was over, the superintendent was as well acquainted with the Maze, its rumours and its mysteries and with sundry other items of Foxwood gossip, as Tatton himself could be.

  “A gentleman waiting — had been waiting some time — to see Mr. Game on the Foxwood business,” was the interruption that was first brought to them: and both Mr. Game and Tatton felt somewhat surprised thereby. What gentleman could be engaged on the Foxwood business, except themselves?

  “Who is it?” asked the superintendent. And a card was handed in.

  “Sir Karl Andinnian.”

  A moment’s pause to revolve matters, and then the superintendent issued his fiat.

  “See him in five minutes.”

  The five minutes were occupied with Tatton; but he was safely away ere they had expired, carrying with him his orders to wait; and Sir Karl Andinnian was shown in. The superintendent and the visitor met for the first time, and glanced at each other with some curiosity. The officer saw, in the brother of the noted and unfortunate criminal, a pale, refined, and essentially gentlemanly man, with a sad but attractive face that seemed to tell of sorrow; the other saw a spare man of middle height, who in age might have been his father, and whose speech and manners betokened a cultivation as good as his own.

  Taking the seat offered him, Karl entered at once upon his business. Explaining shortly and truthfully the unfortunate suspicion on his own part, that had led to his inquiries about Salter of Mr. Burtenshaw, and to the subsequent dispatch of Tatton to Foxwood. He concealed nothing; not even the slight foundation for those suspicions — merely the having seen the name of Philip Salter in a pocket-book that was in the possession of Philip Smith; and related his recent explanation with Smith; when he learnt that he and Salter were cousins. Karl told it all: and the officer saw, and believed, that he was telling it truly. Karl then went on to relate how he had himself sought an interview with Tatton on his last return from London — whither he had gone to try and convince Mr.

  Burtenshaw that it was not Salter; that he had learnt from Tatton then that his suspicions were directed to a house called the Maze, as the place of Salter’s concealment, and that he, Sir Karl, had assured Tatton on his word of honour as a gentleman that it was altogether a mistaken assumption, for that Salter was not at the Maze, and never had been there. He had believed that Tatton was convinced by what he said: instead of which, he had taken the extreme and, under the circumstances, most unjustifiable step of proceeding to the house with a search warrant and two policemen, to the terror of the lady inhabiting it, Mrs. Grey, and her two old servants. It was to report this to Tatton’s superiors at head-quarters that he had now come up from Foxwood, Sir Karl added; not, he emphatically said, to complain of Mr. Tatton or to get him reprimanded, for no doubt the man, in doing what he had done, had believed it was but his duty: but to request that instructions might be given him to leave Mrs. Grey in tranquillity for the future. She, feeling much outraged and insulted by the suspicion that she could have a common criminal like Philip Salter concealed in her home, had sent for him, Sir Karl, as her landlord, to beg him to protect her if in his power, and to secure her from further molestation.

  Mr. Superintendent Game listened to Sir Karl’s narrative as attentively and with as much apparent interest as though it comprised information that he had never in all his life heard of: whereas, in point of fact, Tatton had just been going over the same facts with him, or nearly the same. He admitted to Sir Karl that it no doubt did seem to Mrs. Grey an unjustifiable step, an unaccountable intrusion; if indeed Salter were not concealed there and she knew nothing of him.

  “I assure you, as I assured Tatton, that she does not,” spoke Karl, with almost painful earnestness. “There is not an iota of foundation for supposing Salter ever was at Foxwood; certainly he was never at the Maze.”

  “Tatton is an experienced officer, Sir Karl. You may depend upon it that he had good reasons for what he did.”

  “That he fancied he had: I admit that. But they were utterly groundless. I should have thought that had any one lady, above another, been exempt from suspicion of any kind, it was Mrs. Grey. She lives a perfectly retired life at the Maze during her husband’s absence, giving offence to none. To suppose she would allow the fugitive Salter, a man whom she never knew or saw, to be concealed within her domains is worse than preposterous.”

  “It is hazardous to answer so far for any one, Sir Karl,” was the rejoinder — and Karl thought he detected a faint smile on the speaker’s lips. “Especially for a woman. The best of them have their tricks and turns.”

  “I can answer for Mrs. Grey.”

  Mr. Superintendent Game, whose elbow as he faced Sir Karl was leaning on a desk-table, took it off and fell to pushing together some papers, as though in abstraction. He was no doubt taking time mentally to fit in some portions of Karl’s narrative with the information possessed by himself. Karl waited a minute and then went on.

  “I am sure that this lady would be willing to make a solemn affidavit that she knows nothing of Salter; and that he is not, and never has been, concealed there; if by so doing it would secure her exemption from intrusion for the future.”

  “Yes, no doubt,” said the officer somewhat absently. “Sir Karl Andinnian,” he added, turning briskly to face him again after another pause, “I assume that your own part in this business was confined to the sole fact of your entering on the misapprehension of taking your agent Smith to be Salter.”

  “That’s all. But do you not see how I feel myself to be compromised: since it was my unfortunate endeavour to set the doubt at rest, by applying to Burtenshaw, that has originated all the mischief and brought the insult on Mrs. Grey?”

  “Of course. But for that step of yours we should have heard nothing of Salter in connection with Foxwood.”

  Karl maintained a calm exterior: but he could have ground his teeth as he listened. It was too true.

  “Then, with that one exception, Sir Karl, I am right in assuming that you personally hold no other part or interest in this affair, as regards Salter?”

  “As regards Salter? None whatever.”

  “Well now,” resumed the superintendent, in a confidential kind of tone, “we can talk at our ease for a minute. Does it not strike you, Sir Karl, as an impartial and impassioned looker-on, that there is something rather curious in the affair, taking one thing with another?”

  “I fail to catch your meaning, sir,” replied Karl, gazing at the superintendent. “I confess no such idea has occurred to me. Curious in what way?”

  “We shall come to that. Philip Smith has been your agent about six months, I believe.”

  “About that.”

  “Whence did you have him? Where did he live before?”

  “I really do not know. My mother, the late Mrs. Andinnian, who was occupying Foxwood Court during my absence abroad, engaged him. She became ill herself, was unable to attend to anything, and deemed it well to employ some one to look after my interests.”

  “Report runs in Foxwood — all kinds of gossip have come up to me from the place.” The superintendent broke off to add— “that Smith is only your honorary agent, Sir Karl; that he gives it out he is an old friend of the Andinnian family.”

  “I can assure you that Smith is my paid agent. He has a house to live in, and take
s his salary quarterly.”

  “The house is exactly opposite the Maze gates?”

  “Yes,” said Karl, beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable at the drift the conversation appeared to be taking.

  “Is there any truth in the statement that your family knew him in earlier days? You will see in a minute, Sir Karl, why I ask you all this. I conclude there is not.”

  “I understood my mother to imply in her last illness that she had known something of him: but I was not sure that I caught her meaning correctly, and she was too ill for me to press the question. I had never heard of any Smith myself, and the chances were that I misunderstood her. He makes himself useful about the estate, and that is all I have to look to.”

  “Report says also — pardon me for recurring to it, Sir Karl — that he makes himself a very easy kind of agent; seems to do as he likes, work or play, and spends most of his time smoking in his front garden, exchanging salutations with the passers-by and watching his neighbour’s opposite gate.”

  Had it been to save his life, Karl Andinnian could not have helped the change that passed over his countenance. What was coming? He strove to be cool and careless, poor fellow, and smiled frankly.

  “I fancy he is rather idle — and given to smoke too much. But he does well what he has to do for me, for all that. Mine is not a large estate, as you may be aware, and Sir Joseph left it in first-rate condition. There is very little work for an agent.”