Afternoon Tea Mysteries [Vol Three]

by Anthology

  “I am not joking,” I rejoined. “I never met with two more ill-looking villains in my life. The window was open when you were telling me about the necessity for melting the plates again. They may know as well as we do, that your gold and silver will be returned to you after a time.”

  “What an imagination you have got!” he exclaimed. “You see a couple of shabby excursionists from Brighton, who have

  wandered to Dimchurch—and you instantly transform them into a pair of housebreakers in a conspiracy to rob and murder me! You and my brother Nugent would just suit each other. His imagination runs away with him, exactly like yours.”

  “Take my advice,” I answered gravely. “Don’t persist in sleeping at Browndown without a living creature in the house with you.”

  He was in wild good spirits. He kissed my hand, and thanked me in his voluble exaggerated way for the interest that I took in him. “All right!” he said, as he opened the gate. “I’ll have a living creature in the house with me. I’ll get a dog.”

  We parted. I had told him what was on my mind. I could do no more. After all, it might be quite possible that his view was the right one, and mine the wrong.

  CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

  Second Appearance of Jicks

  FIVE more days passed.

  During that interval, we saw our new neighbour constantly. Either Oscar came to the rectory, or we went to Browndown. Reverend Finch waited, with a masterly assumption of suspecting nothing, until the relations between the two young people were ripe enough to develop into relations of acknowledged love. They were already (under Lucilla’s influence) advancing rapidly to that point. You are not to blame my poor blind girl, if you please, for frankly encouraging the man she loved. He was the most backward man—viewed as a suitor—whom I ever met with. The fonder he grew of her, the more timid and self-distrustful he became. I own I don’t like a modest man; and I cannot honestly say that Mr. Oscar Dubourg, on closer acquaintance, advanced himself much in my estimation. However, Lucilla understood him, and that was enough. She was determined to have the completest possible image of him in her mind. Everybody in the house who had seen him (the children included) she examined and cross-examined on the subject of his personal appearance, as she had already examined and cross-examined me. His features and his color, his height and his breadth; his ornaments and his clothes—on all these points she collected evidence, in every direction and in the smallest detail. It was an especial relief and delight to her to hear, on all sides, that his complexion was fair. There was no reasoning with her against her blind horror of dark shades of color, whether seen in men, women, or things. She was quite unable to account for it; she could only declare it.

  “I have the strangest instincts of my own about some things,” she said to me one day. “For instance, I knew that Oscar was bright and fair—I mean I felt it in myself—on that delightful evening when I first heard the sound of his voice. It went straight from my ear to my heart; and it described him, just as the rest of you have described him to me since. Mrs. Finch tells me his complexion is lighter than mine. Do you think so too? I am so glad to hear that he is fairer than I am! Did you ever meet before with a person like me? I have the oddest ideas in this blind head of mine. I associate life and beauty with light colors, and death and crime with dark colors. If I married a man with a dark complexion, and if I recovered my sight afterwards, I should run away from him.”

  This singular prejudice of hers against dark people was a little annoying to me on personal grounds. It was a sort of reflection on my own taste. Between ourselves, the late Doctor Pratolungo was of a fine mahogany brown all over.

  As for affairs in general at Dimchurch, my chronicle of the five days finds little to dwell on that is worth recording.

  We were not startled by any second appearance of the two ruffians at Browndown—neither was any change made by Oscar in his domestic establishment. He was favoured with more than one visit from our little wandering Jicks. On each occasion, the child gravely reminded him of his rash promise to appeal to the police, and visit with corporal punishment the two ugly strangers who had laughed at her. When were the men to be beaten? and when was Jicks to see it? Such were the serious questions with which this young lady regularly opened the proceedings, on each occasion when she favoured Oscar with a morning call.

  On the sixth day, the gold and silver plates were returned to Browndown from the manufactory in London.

  The next morning a note arrived for me from Oscar. It ran thus:—

  “DEAR MADAME PRATOLUNGO,—I regret to inform you that nothing happened to me last night. My locks and bolts are in their usual good order; my gold and silver plates are safe in the workshop: and I myself am now eating my breakfast with an uncut throat—Yours ever,

  “OSCAR.”

  After this, there was no more to be said. Jicks might persist in remembering the two ill-looking strangers. Older and wiser people dismissed them from all further consideration.

  Saturday came—making the tenth day since the memorable morning when I had forced Oscar to disclose himself to me in the little side-room at Browndown.

  In the forenoon we had a visit from him at the rectory. In the afternoon we went to Browndown, to see him begin a new piece of chasing in gold—a casket for holding gloves—destined to take its place on Lucilla’s toilet-table when it was done. We left him industriously at work; determined to go on as long as the daylight lasted.

  Early in the evening, Lucilla sat down at her pianoforte; and I paid a visit by appointment to the rectory side of the house.

  Unhappy Mrs. Finch had determined to institute a complete reform of her wardrobe. She had entreated me to give her the benefit of “my French taste,” in the capacity of confidential critic and adviser. “I can’t afford to buy any new things,” said the poor lady. “But a deal might be done in altering what I have got by me, if a clever person took the matter up.” Who could resist that piteous appeal? I resigned myself to the baby, the novel, and the children in general; and (Reverend Finch being out of the way, writing his sermon) I presented myself in Mrs. Finch’s parlour, full of ideas, with my scissors and my pattern-paper ready in my hand.

  We had only begun our operations, when one of the elder children arrived with a message from the nursery.

  It was tea-time; and, as usual, Jicks was missing. She was searched for, first in the lower regions of the house; secondly in the garden. Not a trace of her was to be discovered in either quarter. Nobody was surprised or alarmed. We said, “Oh, dear, she has gone to Browndown again!”—and immersed ourselves once more in the shabby recesses of Mrs. Finch’s wardrobe.

  I had just decided that the blue merino jacket was an article of wearing apparel which had done its duty, and earned its right to final retirement from the scene—when a plaintive cry reached my ear, through the open door which led into the back garden.

  I stopped, and looked at Mrs. Finch.

  The cry was repeated, louder and nearer: recognizable this time as a cry in a child’s voice. The door of the room had been left ajar, when we sent the messenger back to the nursery. I threw it open, and found myself face to face with Jicks in the passage.

  I felt every nerve in my body shudder at the sight of the child.

  The poor little thing was white and wild with terror. She was incapable of uttering a word. When I knelt down to fondle and soothe her, she caught convulsively at my hand, and attempted to raise me. I got on my feet again. She repeated her dumb cry more loudly—and tried to drag me out of the house. She was so weak that she staggered under the effort. I took her up in my arms. One of my hands, as I embraced her, touched the top of her frock, just below the back of her neck. I felt something on my fingers. I looked at them. Gracious God! I was stained with blood!

  I turned the child round. My own blood froze. Her mother, standing behind me, screamed with horror.

  The dear little thing’s white frock was spotted and splashed with wet blood. Not her own blood. There was not a
scratch on her. I looked closer at the horrid marks. They had been drawn purposely on her—drawn, as it seemed, with a finger. I took her out into the light. It was writing! A word had been feebly traced on the back of her frock. I made out something like the letter “H.” Then a letter which it was impossible to read.

  Then another next to it, which might have been “L,” or might have been “J.” Then a last letter, which I guessed to be “P.”

  Was the word—“Help”?

  Yes!—traced on the back of the child’s frock, with a finger dipped in blood—“HELP.”

  CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

  Discoveries at Browndown

  IT is needless to tell you at what conclusion I arrived, as soon as I was sufficiently myself to think at all.

  Thanks to my adventurous past life, I have got the habit of deciding quickly in serious emergencies of all sorts. In the present emergency—as I saw it—there were two things to be done. One, to go instantly with help to Browndown: the other, to keep the knowledge of what had happened from Lucilla until I could get back again, and prepare her for the discovery.

  I looked at Mrs. Finch. She had dropped helplessly into a chair. “Rouse yourself!” I said—and shook her. It was no time for sympathizing with swoons and hysterics. The child was still in my arms; fast yielding, poor little thing, to the exhaustion of fatigue and terror. I could do nothing until I had relieved myself of the charge of her. Mrs. Finch looked up at me, trembling and sobbing. I put the child in her lap. Jicks feebly resisted being parted from me; but soon gave up, and dropped her weary little head on her mother’s bosom. “Can you take off her frock?” I asked, with another shake—a good one, this time. The prospect of a domestic occupation (of any sort) appeared to rouse Mrs. Finch. She looked at the baby, in its cradle in one corner of the room, and at the novel, reposing on a chair in another corner of the room. The presence of these two familiar objects appeared to encourage her. She shivered, she swallowed a sob, she recovered her breath, she began to undo the frock.

  “Put it away carefully,” I said; “and say nothing to anybody of what has happened, until I come back. You can see for yourself that the child is not hurt. Soothe her, and wait here. Is Mr. Finch in the study?”

  Mrs. Finch swallowed another sob, and said, “Yes.” The child made a last effort. “Jicks will go with you,” said the indomitable little Arab faintly. I ran out of the room, and left the three babies—big, little, and least—together.

  After knocking at the study door without getting any reply, I opened it and went in. Reverend Finch, comfortably prostrate in a large arm-chair (with his sermon-paper spread out in fair white sheets by his side), started up, and confronted me in the character of a clergyman that moment awakened from a sound sleep.

  The rector of Dimchurch instantly recovered his dignity.

  “I beg your pardon, Madame Pratolungo, I was deep in thought. Please state your business briefly.” Saying those words, he waved his hand magnificently over his empty sheets of paper, and added in his deepest bass: “Sermon-day.”

  I told him in the plainest words what I had seen on his child’s frock, and what I feared had happened at Browndown. He turned deadly pale. If I ever yet set my two eyes on a man thoroughly frightened, Reverend Finch was that man.

  “Do you anticipate danger?” he inquired. “Is it your opinion that criminal persons are in, or near, the house?”

  “It is my opinion that there is not a moment to be lost,” I answered. “We must go to Browndown; and we must get what help we can on the way.”

  I opened the door, and waited for him to come out with me. Mr. Finch (still apparently pre-occupied with the question of the criminal persons) looked as if he wished himself a hundred miles from his own rectory at that particular moment. But he was the master of the house; he was the principal man in the place—he had no other alternative, as matters now stood, than to take his hat and go.

  We went out together into the village. My reverend companion was silent for the first time in my limited experience of him. We inquired for the one policeman who patrolled the district. He was away on his rounds. We asked if anybody had seen the doctor. No: it was not the doctor’s day for visiting Dimchurch. I had heard the landlord of the Gross Hands described as a capable and respectable man; and I suggested stopping at the inn, and taking him with us. Mr. Finch instantly brightened at that proposal. His sense of his own importance rose again, like the mercury in a thermometer when you put it into a warm bath.

  “Exactly what I was about to suggest,” he said. “Gootheridge of the Gross Hands is a very worthy person—for his station in life. Let us have Gootheridge, by all means. Don’t be alarmed, Madame Pratolungo. We are all in the hands of Providence. It is most fortunate for you that I was at home. What would you have done without me? Now don’t, pray don’t, be alarmed. In case of criminal persons—I have my stick, as you see. I am not tall; but I possess immense physical strength. I am, so to speak, all muscle. Feel!”

  He held out one of his wizen little arms. It was about half the size of my arm. If I had not been far too anxious to think of playing tricks, I should certainly have declared that it was needless, with such a tower of strength by my side, to disturb the landlord. I dare not assert that Mr. Finch actually detected the turn my thoughts were taking—I can only declare that he did certainly shout for Gootheridge in a violent hurry, the moment we were in sight of the inn.

  The landlord came out; and, hearing what our errand was, instantly consented to join us.

  “Take your gun,” said Mr. Finch.

  Gootheridge took his gun. We hastened on to the house.

  “Were Mrs. Gootheridge or your daughter at Browndown today?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am—they were both at Browndown. They finished up their work as usual—and left the house more than an hour since.”

  “Did anything out of the common happen while they were there?”

  “Nothing that I heard of, ma’am.”

  I considered with myself for a minute, and ventured on putting a few more questions to Mr. Gootheridge.

  “Have any strangers been seen here this evening?” I inquired.

  “Yes, ma’am. Nearly an hour ago two strangers drove by my house in a chaise.”

  “In what direction?”

  “Coming from Brighton way, and going towards Browndown.”

  “Did you notice the men?”

  “Not particularly, ma’am. I was busy. at the time.”

  A sickening suspicion that the two strangers in the chaise might be the two men whom I had seen lurking under the wall, forced its way into my mind. I said no more until we reached the house.

  All was quiet. The one sign of anything unusual was in the plain traces of the passage of wheels over the turf in front of Browndown. The landlord was the first to see them. “The chaise must have stopped at the house, sir,” he said, addressing himself to the rector.

  Reverend Finch was suffering under a second suspension of speech. All he could say as we approached the door of the silent and solitary building—and he said that with extreme difficulty—was, “Pray let us be careful!”

  The landlord was the first to reach the door. I was behind him. The rector—at some little distance—acted as rear-guard, with the South Downs behind him to retreat upon. Gootheridge rapped smartly on the door, and called out, “Mr. Dubourg!” There was no answer. There was only a dreadful silence. The suspense was more than I could endure. I pushed by the landlord, and turned the handle of the unlocked door.

  “Let me go first, ma’am,” said Gootheridge.

  He pushed by me, in his turn. I followed him close. We entered the house, and called again. Again there was no answer. We looked into the little sitting-room on one side of the passage, and into the dining-room on the other. Both were empty. We went on to the back of the house, where the room was situated which Oscar called his workshop. When we tried the door of the workshop it was locked.

  We knocked, and called again. The horrid
silence was all that followed—as before.

  I tried the keyhole with my finger. The key was not in the lock. I knelt down, and looked through the keyhole. The next instant, I was up again on my feet, wild and giddy with horror.

  “Burst open the door!” I screamed. “I can just see his hand lying on the floor!”

  The landlord, like the rector, was a little man; and the door, like everything else at Browndown, was of the clumsiest and heaviest construction. Unaided by instruments, we should all three together have been too weak to burst it open. In this difficulty, Reverend Finch proved to be—for the first time, and also for the last—of some use.

  “Stay!” he said. “My friends, if the back garden gate is open, we can get in by the window.”

  Neither the landlord nor I had thought of the window. We ran round to the back of the house; seeing the marks of the chaise-wheels leading in the same direction. The gate in the wall was wide open. We crossed the little garden. The window of the workshop—opening to the ground—gave us admission as the rector had foretold. We entered the room.

  There he lay—poor harmless, unlucky Oscar—senseless, in a pool of his own blood. A blow on the left side of his head had, to all appearance, felled him on the spot. The wound had split the scalp. Whether it had also split the skull was more than I was surgeon enough to be able to say. I had gathered some experience of how to deal with wounded men, when I served the sacred cause of Freedom with my glorious Pratolungo. Cold water, vinegar, and linen for bandages—these were all in the house; and these I called for. Gootheridge found the key of the door flung aside in a corner of the room. He got the water and the vinegar, while I ran up-stairs to Oscar’s bedroom, and provided myself with some of his handkerchiefs. In a few minutes, I had a cold water bandage over the wound, and was bathing his face in vinegar and water. He was still insensible; but he lived. Reverend Finch—not of the slightest help to anybody—assumed the duty of feeling Oscar’s pulse. He did it as if, under the circumstances, this was the one meritorious action that could be performed. He looked as if nobody could feel a pulse but himself. “Most fortunate,” he said, counting the slow, faint throbbing at the poor fellow’s wrist—“most fortunate that I was at home. What would you have done without me?”