 
Transcriber's Notes (Volume 3):
A Novel.
By T. W. SPEIGHT,AUTHOR OF | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CONTENTS OF VOL. III. | |
| CHAPTER | |
| I. | ELEANOR'S RESOLVE. |
| II. | POD'S STRATAGEM. |
| III. | VAN DUREN'S DREAM. |
| IV. | PRINGLE'S DISCOVERY. |
| V. | A FOUND LETTER. |
| VI. | VAN DUREN IN WALES. |
| VII. | THE MESSAGE TO STAMMARS. |
| VIII. | WINGED WORDS. |
| IX. | VAN DUREN'S FLIGHT. |
| X. | TOLD AT LAST. |
| XI. | "AND YOU SHALL STILL BE LADY CLARE." |
| XII. | THE STRONG-ROOM. |
| XIII. | CONCLUSION. |
A SECRET OF THE SEA.
CHAPTER I.
ELEANOR'S RESOLVE.
"I'm in no particular hurry, doctor, to get back to London," Sir Thomas Dudgeon had quietly hinted to his medical man. "I daresay the House can get on without me quite as well as with me, so you needn't hurry yourself to say I'm fit for harness again till you feel quite sure in your own mind that I am so."
Dr. Welstead was not slow to take the hint, and he kept on calling at Stammars two or three times a week, and sending one innocuous draught after another, which draughts Sir Thomas conscientiously poured into the ash-pan when his wife was not looking, till the baronet's holiday had extended itself to the beginning of May. But by this time Sir Thomas looked so well and rosy, and was in possession of such a hearty appetite, that a vague suspicion that she was being duped began to haunt her ladyship's mind. She said nothing to her husband, but made her preparations in silence. Then, one morning at the breakfast-table, the shell exploded.
"To-day is Wednesday, dear," she said, "and I have made all arrangements for our going up to town on Saturday morning. Dr. Welstead seems quite at a loss how to treat you: indeed, country practitioners, as a rule, are not competent to deal with anything beyond a simple case of measles; so on Saturday afternoon I will myself drive you to see Sir Knox Timpany, and wait for you while you consult that eminent authority, who, I doubt not, will make you as well as ever you were, in the course of a very few days."
Sir Thomas fumed and fretted, but her ladyship was inexorable. Go he must; and when he saw there was no help for it, he made a merit of necessity; but at the same time he registered a silent vow that not all the wives in England should drag him to the door of Sir Knox Timpany.
At the last moment, however, the baronet and Gerald started for London alone. Late on Friday, Lady Dudgeon received a telegram. Her only sister was very ill, and it was needful that she should hurry off without an hour's delay. "Considering all that I have done for Caroline, it is really very ungrateful of her to be ill at a time like this," she grumbled to her husband. "She knew how anxious I was to get back to town, and she might have doctored herself up for another month or two. I hope to goodness she won't die till the season is over. I can't bear myself in mourning."
"Your only sister, my dear," remarked Sir Thomas, soothingly. "I wouldn't leave her, if I were you, while there's the least danger. Your conscience might prick you afterwards, you know."
"Stuff!" was her ladyship's rejoinder. "Of course, I shall do what is proper; but if I were to die to-morrow, Caroline's first thought would be how soon after that event she might begin to wear flounces again."
Without wishing his sister-in-law any harm, Sir Thomas would not have been sorry if her illness had kept his wife at her bedside for half a year. The thought of having a few weeks, or even a few days, in London, without being supervised by her ladyship, was to bring back the feelings of his youth when school broke up for the summer holidays. In fact, during the three weeks that elapsed before her ladyship joined him in town, he was more like a schoolboy let loose than the fancy sketch of him with which the Pembridge Gazette one week favoured its readers, wherein he was described as a senator, grave and staid, whose trained and powerful intellect was perpetually engaged in grappling with the most tremendous social and political problems of the age.
After a little dinner, quiet and early, at which Gerald generally sat down with him, Sir Thomas would post off to the House. But an hour or an hour and a half there was quite enough for him. Whist and a prime cigar at his club were far preferable to prosy speeches by people whom he did not know, and on subjects about which he did not care twopence.
Since the day of his confession in the library, Gerald had seen very little of Eleanor. If they met casually in passing from one room to another, a bow and a faint smile was all the greeting that passed between them. When they met at the dinner-table, no ordinary observer would have noticed any difference in their demeanour towards each other. Gerald talked as much as ever he had done: he knew that Sir Thomas and his wife liked him to make talk for them: but fewer of his observations were now addressed directly to Miss Lloyd than used to be the case at one time. Sometimes he even turned over the music for Eleanor when she played after dinner; but had Lady Dudgeon been the most Argus-eyed of dowagers, instead of the most unsuspicious, she could not possibly have found fault with his demeanour on such occasions. He was Sir Thomas Dudgeon's secretary--and nothing more.
Eleanor had received his confession in a spirit somewhat different from what he had expected. He had thought that her pride would be more deeply wounded by the deception he had practised on her than it appeared to be. That it was wounded, he knew full well; but when he parted from her at the close of the interview, he did not fail to notice the quiver of her lip, and the longing, wistful look in her eyes. In his previous thoughts of her, it was evident he had not calculated sufficiently on the effect which his frank confession and prayer for forgiveness would have on a generous and loving disposition like that of Eleanor. It seemed by no means unlikely, as Gerald said to himself afterwards, when thinking over the interview, that she had indeed so far forgiven him as to make his reinstatement in her regards the question merely of a little time and perseverance; and under other circumstances he would not have allowed a day to pass without attempting a renewal of his suit. But fixed as he was just then, he could not bring his mind to the adoption of such a course. That he had fallen somewhat in Eleanor's esteem, that he had sunk to a lower level in her thoughts, he could not doubt; and however much she might feel inclined to forgive him, it was questionable whether--had the circumstances of the case really been such as she believed them to be--she could ever have looked upon him with quite the same eyes as before. Such a change as this Gerald did not care to face. He preferred that, for a little while, she should think all was over between them; that he had given up all thoughts of winning her for his wife. He knew that before very long she would have to be told everything, and till that time should come he would speak no word of love to her again. The more hardly she thought of him now, the greater would be the re-bound towards him when, from other lips than his, she should hear the whole strange story that must soon be told her.
About a fortnight after sending his first letter to Kelvin, Gerald followed it up with another. But again came the same answer as before, that Mr. Kelvin was still too ill to attend to business. Gerald was debating in his own mind as to the advisability of going over to Pembridge and seeking an interview with Kelvin, when the receipt of certain news from Ambrose Murray decided him to wait a short time longer. Murray told him the result of the inquiries in Wales, and how he and Peter Byrne were going to start for Marhyddoc in the course of a few days; and Gerald was entreated to follow them as quickly as possible. Under these circumstances there seemed to Gerald no necessity for troubling Kelvin any further at present. Should Ambrose Murray find that which he was going to Wales to search for, then would all necessity for concealment on his part be at an end. One of his first acts would be to ask for the daughter who knew him not. Then would come the time for Gerald to say who and what he was. His first act after Eleanor knew that he was no longer John Pomeroy, the poor secretary, but Gerald Warburton, the heir to Mr. Lloyd's wealth, would be to tell her how truly he still loved her, and to ask her to become his wife. Let her, for a week or two longer, think that he had yielded her up without a struggle: in a very little while she should discover that no power on earth could make him yield her up--nothing, save her own deliberate dismissal of him, could do that.
Thus it was that Gerald left Stammars without saying a word of farewell to Eleanor; and she, sitting half heart-broken by the window of her own room, saw him drive off to the station, and cried after him, "Oh, my darling, why have you left me? Perhaps I shall never see you again."
Gerald had only done Eleanor simple justice when he said to himself that she was ready to forgive and forget the past. "He has confessed everything to me, and confession is atonement," she said to herself "He need not have said a word to me, had he been so minded; but the very fact of his telling me is proof sufficient that he is no longer seeking to win me for my money, but for myself only."
Day by day she had been expecting to receive some word, some look even, from him which would tell her that his feelings were still unchanged; but day passed after day, and neither word nor look was vouchsafed her. She was chilled and hurt by Gerald's persistent silence and evident avoidance of her. Could it be, she asked herself, that he thought he had sinned past forgiveness? To prove that such was not the case, she would be more gracious and complaisant towards him than she had ever been before. She would endeavour to let him see, as far as a modest maiden might do so, that he had nothing to fear; that the past was forgiven, and that the future rested with himself alone. But Gerald might have been made of marble, so cold and impassive did he seem to the tender-hearted girl, who had only discovered of late how fondly she loved him.
Then her pride came to her aid, and she tried her best to emulate Gerald's indifference. She laughed and talked, and seemed altogether merrier than of old; but no one knew what she suffered in the solitude of her own room.
Now it was that she determined to put into execution a project that had been more or less in her thoughts for a longtime. She was tired of the empty, frivolous life that she had been leading for some time past. It had seemed very pleasant to her while the freshness lasted, but that had now worn off, and she had made up her mind that she would have no more of it--or only a taste of it now and then as a relief from more serious duties. What she wanted was some plain, earnest work to do--some work that would benefit others as well as herself For a long time she had seemed like one groping in the dark; but at last she thought she saw a clear line of duty marked out for her footsteps, the following of which might not be altogether without avail.
And now her purpose grew firm within her. All was at an end between her and Pomeroy. She had only herself to consult. In hard work she might, perchance, find an anodyne for her wound. In any case, she would try to do so.
"I suppose, my dear, that you won't object to give me a month this autumn?" said Lady Dudgeon to her husband, as they sat together one morning, about a couple of days before their projected return to London.
"Oh, ho! it's come to that, has it?" answered the baronet. "Well, I suppose you must have your own way in the matter, although you know that I hate both the place and the class of people one meets there. I suppose we can take Eleanor with us? It will be a treat to her, and company for you."
"Eleanor's a little fool!"
"Possibly so; you know best, I dare say."
"She tells me that she is going to leave us."
"Eleanor going to leave us!"
Sir Thomas looked quite dumbfounded. At this moment Eleanor entered the room.
"What is this I hear, little one?" he cried. "You are not going to leave us, surely?"
"For a little while, dear Sir Thomas. Perhaps not for long," answered Eleanor.
"I'm sorry for that--very sorry indeed. I had grown to like you almost as much as if you were a daughter of my own."
Tears came into Eleanor's eyes. She crossed the room, and taking Sir Thomas's hand in both hers, pressed it to her lips.
"My gratitude--my love, if you care for it--will always be yours! I can never repay even a tithe of the kindness shown me by Lady Dudgeon and yourself."
"Eleanor, I have no patience with you!" cried Lady Dudgeon, dipping her pen viciously in the inkstand.
"But where is the girl going, and what is she going to do?" asked the baronet.
"Let her answer for herself."
"You will think it very strange of me, I dare say," said Eleanor; "but Miss Mulhouse, whose name is no doubt familiar to you, has offered to find me a position in one of the Homes for Destitute Girls, which she is trying to establish in different parts of London."
"Heaven bless us!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "You don't mean to say that you are going to leave a place like Stammars on purpose to spend your days in a back slum in the east end of London?"
"I am going to try to find something to do," said Eleanor. "I am going to try to make myself of some little use in the world."
"A madcap scheme, my dear--I can call it nothing else," said the old gentleman, with a melancholy shake of the head "If you feel charitably disposed, a twenty-pound note at Christmas, judiciously laid out, will go a long way--a very long way, indeed."
"To give money alone does not seem to me enough. I want to work for those poor helpless ones; to labour for them with head and hands; to learn their histories and their wants; to win their sympathies, and to make their lives a little less hard, if I can possibly do so."
"My dear," said Sir Thomas, turning to his wife, "what a pity it is that you have not found a husband for Miss Lloyd!"
"Miss Lloyd has had three most eligible offers since she placed herself under my care."
"And she refused them?"
"Every one."
"Then her case must be a hopeless one indeed."
"I have argued and reasoned with her, but all to no purpose," said her ladyship. "She is determined to have her own headstrong way. But I prophesy that before six months are over we shall have Miss Lloyd back at Stammars, tired and disgusted with a task which may look very nice in theory, but which must be excessively unpleasant when reduced to practice."
"She will always be welcome at Stammars whenever she likes to come back to us."
"You won't think me ungrateful for leaving you, will you, Sir Thomas?" pleaded Eleanor.
"That I won't, my dear. I'll never think anything but what's good of you."
Thus it was that Eleanor Lloyd, sitting in the window of her room, watching Gerald Warburton drive away, cried to herself, "Perhaps I shall never see him again!"
CHAPTER II.
PODS STRATAGEM.
Days and weeks passed away, but still Matthew Kelvin did not get better. His condition fluctuated strangely. Sometimes for days together there would be a slow but sure improvement. Appetite and strength would alike increase, and his mother would grow glad at heart, thinking that she should soon see him out and about again, and as well as ever. But some morning, without the least warning, there would come a terrible relapse, which, in the course of two or three hours, would undo the improvement that it had taken days to effect, flinging him helplessly back, as some strong wave flings back a desperate swimmer the moment his foot touches the shore, leaving him, buffeted and bruised, and with decreased strength, to struggle again from the same point that he started from before. So it was with Matthew Kelvin. There were times and seasons, after one of these strange relapses, when to those about him he seemed on the very verge of the grave--times and seasons when the patient himself prayed that if there were to be no release from his sufferings but death, then that death might come, and come quickly. Then would Dr. Druce be summoned in hot haste by Mrs. Kelvin. Presently the old gentleman would totter slowly into the room, smile blandly round at the anxious faces about him, and, both by his manner and words, quietly pooh-pooh their exaggerated alarm.
"I told you from the first," he would cheerfully remark, "that the case was an obstinate one, and you must not allow these apparent relapses to alarm you. The dying struggles of disease are often the most severe. The garrison will sometimes make its most desperate sortie after it knows that in the course of a few days it will be compelled to capitulate unconditionally. For the present the pain is over. I will send a composing draught, which the patient must take at once; and to-morrow I doubt not but we shall find ourselves much stronger and better."
Better next day Mr. Kelvin would undoubtedly be, but not stronger. Each one of these mysterious relapses seemed to leave him a little weaker than before, a little less able to cope with the enemy that seemed bent on sapping away his life by slow degrees. But of this he hinted nothing to his mother. Her anxiety on his account was deep enough already; there was no need to add to her distress; so he kept his own counsel, and put a cheerful face on the matter, and would declare, on waking after one of the composing draughts, that he felt stronger and better than he had felt for weeks.
If any of Mrs. Kelvin's friends ever hinted to her that Dr. Druce was very old and very infirm, and that it might perhaps be advisable to seek some further advice, the old lady was up in arms in a moment, "Because people are old and not quite so active as they may once have been, I hope they are not necessarily fools!" she would tartly remark. "If that is the case, I must be a great fool, indeed. Dr. Druce has practised in Pembridge for fifty years, and if his experience is not worth more than that of a man thirty years his junior, I should like to know what is the good of experience at all. No, no; the older a doctor grows the cleverer he must become, if he has any brains at all." After such an outburst as this, there was nothing more to be said, especially as the patient himself seemed to have every confidence in Dr. Druce's skill and ability to cope with the strange malady from which he was suffering.
Nothing more was now said about Olive Deane's return to her duties at Stammar. It was an understood thing that she could not possibly be spared while her cousin's health remained as it was at present. Lady Dudgeon had very kindly consented to keep the situation open for her for a few weeks longer, in the hope that by that time Mr. Kelvin's health might be so far restored as to allow of Olive's resumption of her duties; but Olive, though she said nothing, had far different objects in view. She laughed to herself when she read Lady Dudgeon's note, and then tossed it contemptuously into the fire.
She had, indeed, long before this time, contrived to render herself indispensable both to her aunt and her cousin. She could not always be in the sickroom. Many were the hours that she and her aunt sat together alone. Such hours she did her best to brighten by means of pleasant, genial talk and long readings from her aunt's favourite books, and the old lady was proportionately grateful.
"I often feel as if you had always lived with us," she would sometimes say to Olive. "You seem altogether like one of ourselves, and however we shall be able to let you go again, I can't tell. If Matthew were a marrying man, he might do worse, my dear, than make you his wife. But that is out of the question, for I don't suppose he will ever marry now."
Olive was not quite so sure on that point as her aunt seemed to be. Her affectionate devotion to her cousin seemed as if it were about to bear fruit at last. He could not bear to let any one but Olive wait upon him or minister to his needs.
Even to his mother he once or twice spoke with a slight tinge of impatience; coming after Olive, her waiting upon him seemed slow and bungling indeed. "If you would only sit down in that easy chair, mother, and let Olive attend to me!" he would say. "I want you to tell me all the gossip, and not to be bothering yourself and me about the quality of my beef-tea."
As for having any common paid nurse to wait upon him, that was altogether out of the question now.
As he sat in his easy-chair one day, propped up with pillows and sipping at a cup of barley-water, while Olive sat on a low hassock close by, waiting till he should be ready to give her the cup, he said to her suddenly, after a long silence: "I believe, Olive, that if I ever do get better--which I sometimes doubt--I shall owe my life far more to your care and attention than to old Druce's filthy mixtures. I shall never know how to repay you. I never knew that you had half the splendid qualities in you that you have shown of late. But we men can hardly ever see farther than our noses where a woman is concerned. I am afraid I shall have to remain your debtor to the end of the chapter."
"You talk very great nonsense, Matthew," she said, in a voice that was hardly louder than a whisper. "You my debtor, indeed!"
One of her cousin's hands rested on the arm of his chair; by accident, it may be, one of Olive's hands found its way to the same place. Their fingers touched. Matthew put down his empty cup, and taking Olive's hand in both his, drew her towards him. Then he put one arm round her neck, and drawing her face close to his, he kissed her on the forehead. They both looked round with a start. Mrs. Kelvin had quietly opened the door, and was standing there with a smile on her face.
"Two's company--three's none," said the old lady, pleasantly. "I'll go back to my room for a little while, and next time I come I will be discreet enough to cough before opening the door."
"You dear old goose!" said Kelvin. "If cousins may not kiss, who may?"
"Oh, don't think that I object to your kissing each other!" cried the old lady. "That sort of medicine might do you more good than any other."
"By Jove, now, I never thought of that!" cried Kelvin, with a laugh. "Only, in the present case, it was altogether a one-sided affair. It was not Olive who was kissing me, but I who was kissing Olive."
These were the last words that Olive heard, as, with face aflame, she hurried from the room; but what had just happened was enough to fill her with strange, rapturous thoughts, and to strengthen hopes that were beginning to droop and grow faint for want of sustenance. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coÛte. The ice was broken; the first step was taken; everything else would follow in due course.
No after allusion was made either by Matthew or his mother to the scene just described, but Olive flattered herself by imagining that there was a warmth, a significance, in her cousin's manner now, such as she had never noticed before. If he would but speak; if he would but breathe one word to which she could pin her faith--that she could treasure up even as a half promise that he would make her his wife--from that very day his illness should begin to leave him! But at present she dare not falter in the course she had laid down for herself. Were he to recover suddenly now, all thoughts of her and her services would be quickly swept from his mind by the inrush of hopes, cares, pleasures, and anxieties of everyday life, which the flood-gates of sickness had for a time partially shut out. Every additional day that kept him helpless in her hands was so much gain to her hopes. The more deeply he continued to feel the need of her and her services, the more likely was his gratitude to lead him by imperceptible degrees into the easy pathway of love. If he had not loved her a little he would hardly have kissed her as he did. Let him but seal those kisses with a word, and from that moment the breath of returning life should fill his nostrils; while no man should ever have a wife more tender and devoted than she would be to him. How bitterly it made her heart ache to see him lying there in pain, which she alone could relieve but dare not--to see him wasting day by day into a haggard, gaunt-eyed skeleton of his former self--no one but herself could ever more than faintly imagine. "If he were to die, I should poison myself an hour after. But he won't do that. Suddenly, some day, the scales will fall from his eyes, and he will know that he loves me and that I love him; and that love shall bring him back to life and health from the verge of the grave itself!"
Pod Piper was a frequent visitor in his master's sickroom. Whenever Mr. Kelvin felt himself a little better, he would send for Pod and dictate sundry instructions, chiefly replies to some of his many correspondents, which that young gentleman would take down in shorthand, to be copied out afterwards in the office downstairs. Of course, there were times when it was requisite that Mr. Bray, the head-clerk, should see his employer in person; but as he happened to be slightly afflicted with deafness, the labour of talking to him was sometimes too much for Mr. Kelvin, so he dispensed as much as possible with the necessity of seeing him. To Olive Deane it seemed far better that if any one must see her cousin frequently on matters of business, that person should be a simple country lad, the chief occupation of whose mind probably was to wonder what he should have for dinner, rather than that quietly observant Mr. Bray, who seemed to see so much and to say so little. So to Pod she was always coldly gracious, and when he had finished with Mr. Kelvin upstairs, he generally found a piece of bread and jam, or a slice of cake, or an orange, on the hall table, put there for him by Olive herself Whatever the article might be, it made no difference to Pod: he treated them all with the strict impartiality of a hungry lad: but his private opinion with regard to Miss Deane was not modified one iota thereby. He could not forget the scene between her and Mr. Pomeroy; he could not forget the base plot of which he had overheard the details, and of which his favourite, Miss Lloyd, was to be the victim.
"She's a snake in the grass, if ever there was one," Pod would often remark confidentially to himself, even while in the very act of munching the bread and jam which Miss Deane had prepared for him.
"Doesn't the governor seem to have got fond of her all of a sudden!" remarked Pod, parenthetically to himself, one day, as he was marching slowly downstairs from the sick man's room. "Nobody else must wait upon him, or even be near him. It's disgusting!"
There was a splendid orange waiting for him on the hall table this morning. He took it with him to his den to enjoy in secret; but all the time he was sucking the orange, his thoughts were with his master and Miss Deane. "How close she sticks to him! Seems as if she couldn't bear even the old lady to go near him. What a funny thing it is he don't get better! I don't believe Dr. Druce, who's no better than an old woman, knows a bit what's the matter with him. I've seen him two or three times when he's had one of his bad attacks on him, and I'm blessed if I don't have a jaw with Dr. Whitaker about it. He's something like a doctor."
The Dr. Whitaker alluded to by Pod was a young practitioner who had been settled in Pembridge some five or six years. Some professional difference of opinion had arisen between him and Dr. Druce over a case to which they had both been called in, and the older man no longer recognized the younger when they passed each other in the street, or even spoke of him otherwise than in a tone of polite contempt: all of which in no wise troubled Dr. Whitaker, who plodded his way through life with a kind word and a pleasant smile for everybody--even including old Dr. Druce.
Kelvin and he had met several times at the houses of mutual friends, and had learned to know and like each other: and when the former was taken ill, Dr. Whitaker was the man he would have liked to attend him; but he knew that to have breathed such a wish to his mother would almost have broken her heart, so firmly did she pin her faith to Dr. Druce.
If there was one thing that easy-going Dr. Whitaker detested more than another, it was having to make out his own bills. In order to obviate this disagreeable necessity, he had taken of late to employing Pod Piper as his secretary. Pod wrote a capital hand for a youngster, and was only too well pleased to be able to earn a few shillings now and again by working after office-hours. Everybody in Pembridge knew of Mr. Kelvin's illness by this time, and Dr. Whitaker seldom saw Pod without inquiring after him. Thus it was that Pod saw his way to bring under the notice of Dr. Whitaker easily, and as if in the course of ordinary conversation, that which he was growing anxious to tell him.
Accordingly, the next time Dr. Whitaker put his usual query, "How has the governor been to day?" Pod was prepared to go more into detail than he had ever done before.
"Much the same as usual, sir, thank you," he answered. "But if I may make so bold as to say so, my opinion is that Dr. Druce is no better than an old woman. It's the liver, he says---nothing but the liver. If that's all that's the matter, why don't he cure it? Now, if master would only send for you, sir, I'm sure you would soon put him all right again."
"Piper," said Dr. Whitaker, as he leisurely proceeded to light a cigar, "Dr. Druce is one of the antiquities of Pembridge, and antiquities should always be respected. Oblige me by getting on with your work."
Dr. Whitaker went out, and was gone for upwards of an hour. When he got back, Pod was putting away his papers for the night. "He was dreadfully sick this morning when I was in the room," remarked Pod, quietly, as if there had been no hiatus in the conversation. "In fact, there's hardly a day passes that he isn't dreadfully sick. But of course it's all the liver."
"Ah, ah! he's often sick, is he?" And then Dr. Whitaker whistled a few bars below his breath. "Is his sickness accompanied or followed by any particular pain, or any peculiar sensation, do you know?" he said, in a minute or two.
It is not needful that Pod's answer should be set down here. It is sufficient to say that whatever it was it put a sudden end to the young doctor's careless mood. He lighted another cigar, and made Pod sit down opposite to him, and questioned him closely and minutely for upwards of half an hour; and when at last he let him go, it was with a caution not to say a word to anyone about their interview. "Watch closely, and tell me everything," he said. "To-day is Tuesday; you will come to me at seven on Thursday evening. Contrive to be as much with your master during the interval as you can be without exciting suspicion, and note particularly those points which I have specified."
Fortune favoured Pod next morning more than he would have dared to expect. He was called up, as usual, to take down Mr. Kelvin's notes in shorthand. Kelvin, this morning, seemed feebler than usual, and was obliged to pause several times while dictating his instructions. He had got about half-way through the morning's letters, when Miss Deane came in with a cup of tea in her hand. "Take a little of this, Matthew," she said. "It will help to revive you."
He was sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows. He took the tea and sipped at it. "It's a little too hot," he said. "I will drink it presently."
Olive was in the act of putting the cup and saucer on the little table which stood close to her cousin's hand, when there came a hurried knocking at the room door, and next moment the head of one of the servants was intruded into the room. "Oh! if you please, miss," said the girl, "Mrs. Kelvin has met with a little accident. She slipped just now as she was coming downstairs. I don't think she's much hurt, but she wants you to go at once."
Leaving the cup and saucer on the little table, Olive hurried from the room.
"Send me up word, Olive, as soon as you can, whether anything serious is the matter," her cousin said to her as she was going.
He was evidently anxious. "We will leave the papers for a little while, Piper," he said, presently. "We shall have some news from downstairs before long." Then he took the tea and drank a little of it. "I don't know how it is," he said, more as if speaking to himself than addressing Pod, "but of late everything seems to have such a queer taste."
The cup was still in his fingers when Olive opened the door.
"There's nothing to alarm you, Matthew," she said; "nothing serious the matter. Aunt missed the bottom stair as she was coming down. She is a little shaken--nothing worse. If you don't want me just now I will go and sit with her for a little while."
"Go, by all means. Piper and I have not quite finished," said Kelvin. "I am very glad indeed that nothing more serious is the matter."
Olive left the room, and Kelvin put the cup and saucer back on the table. Then he took up a long letter which he had partly read before, and Pod expected he was going to finish it; but, after reading a few lines, he paused, as though considering some point in his mind. He was still holding the letter, still evidently thinking about it, when, by-and-by, he shut his eyes. Pod thought that he had shut them in order to think out more clearly the case before him: perhaps he had. But in the course of two or three minutes the hand that held the letter relaxed its grasp, and Mr. Kelvin's low, regular breathing indicated that he was asleep.
Pod Piper had been sitting very quietly all this time, thinking chiefly of what Dr. Whitaker had talked to him about last evening. Now that his master was asleep, there was nothing to hinder him from taking a long look at him, and tears came into the lad's eyes as he gazed at the hollow-eyed, sunken-cheeked wreck before him. "If this is her doing--If her hand has done this--she must be a daughter of the devil him self!" muttered Pod.
He never could tell afterwards what prompted the thought to enter his mind, but all at once, while gazing at the sleeping man, his face flushed, his eyes brightened, and he rose nervously from his chair. Yes: the breakfast-cup was on the little table, and still three-parts filled with tea. On another table near the door were a couple of empty physic-bottles, put there for the servant to take away. Pod's mind was made up in a moment. Another glance at the sleeper convinced him that there was no present fear from that quarter. Stepping lightly and on tiptoe, he went round the foot of the bed to the other side. Then he took the cup of tea and crossed the room with it to the table on which the empty bottles were standing. One of these bottles he uncorked, and into it, with the loss of a few drops only, he dexterously contrived to pour the tea. Then he recorked the bottle, hid it carefully away in his pocket, and put back the cup on to the little table. That done, he quietly resumed his seat by the sleeping man.
Five minutes later, Miss Deane came into the room. Pod warned her by a gesture that Mr. Kelvin was asleep. She stood gazing at him for a moment, and then she glanced across at the tea-cup. "Did he drink his tea before going to sleep?" she whispered to Pod.
"Yes--every drop of it," answered Pod, without a moment's hesitation.
She took up the cup and saucer and one or two other things, and moved towards the door. Then she took up the empty bottle, and then she looked round as if searching for the other one. Pod was furtively watching her, and his heart came into his mouth. She stood for a moment as if in doubt, but not being quite sure, apparently, whether there had been one bottle or two, she made no remark, but went out of the room as quietly as she had come in.
In ten minutes she was back again. Kelvin was still asleep. "I think there is no need for you to wait any longer," she whispered to Pod. "Mr. Kelvin may sleep for an hour, or even longer. Should he want you when he awakes, I will send for you."
So Pod went, and very thankful he was to get away. When the dinner-hour came, he rushed off at once to Dr. Whitaker's, and telling that gentleman what he had done, left the bottle with him.
Twenty-four hours later. Dr. Whitaker handed a sealed letter to Pod, with instructions to give the same privately into the hands of Mr. Kelvin at the first possible opportunity. That opportunity came next morning, when Miss Deane left the room for a few minutes while her cousin was dictating his letters to Pod. The moment the door was shut behind her. Pod, who had been on the watch, passed the letter into the hands of Mr. Kelvin. "You must read this in private, please, before Miss Deane comes back into the room."
Kelvin looked at the lad, but broke the seal without comment. Then, glancing at the signature, "From Whitaker!" he said. "What on earth can he have to write to me about?"
Dr. Whitaker's letter ran as under--
"My dear Kelvin,--
"I need not tell you that I have been truly grieved to hear of your long illness, as I do not doubt that you would be grieved were I in the same unfortunate predicament. As your clerk, young Piper, is frequently employed by me of an evening in making out my accounts, I have been enabled to question him pretty closely as to the progress and symptoms of your complaint. As a professional man, such details are never without interest for me, more especially where one of my friends is concerned. Certain things which Piper has told me of late (in answer to my questioning) have set me thinking very seriously.
"I have a certain delicacy in writing to you as I am writing now. Druce and I, as you are well aware, are by no means the best of friends. He looks upon me as a juvenile who has hardly learnt the ABC of his profession--as a believer in new-fangled notions such as the world had never heard of when he was young; and, finally, he holds me in most general contempt. He is quite welcome to his opinion of me. I may have mine about him, only I keep it to myself. In such a state of affairs, for me to interfere, either verbally or by writing, with one of his patients, is a professional crime for which nothing less than hanging, drawing, and quartering ought to be punishment sufficient. Indeed, I may tell you, that unless the occasion had seemed to me a very serious one indeed, no such interference on my part would have taken place. But were I to go to Dr. Druce and tell him what I have reason to think about your case, how should I be received?
"As it happens, there is no need to answer this question. I am not going to Druce. I am going to put him aside, and, breaking through all the rules of professional etiquette, to communicate with you direct.
"My dear Kelvin, I have heard enough from Piper about your case both to puzzle and alarm me. Yours is certainly no ordinary liver complaint. I may tell you that much at once. What else it may be, I am hardly prepared as yet to say--or even to hint. But if you have any regard for my words, or any belief in my knowledge, you will do what I ask of you, and do it without hesitation or delay.
"What I want you to do is this: To send to me by Piper, in a bottle sealed by your own hand, about half a pint of what ever liquid may be brought you to drink after you have read this letter--it matters little whether it be tea, barley-water, toast-and-water, or anything else. Do this unknown to anyone but Piper, who will at once bring me the bottle and contents. Whisper no word to anyone as to what you have done, and ask Piper no questions. He may be trusted implicitly, but of the details he knows nothing. Till you hear from me again, which will probably be to-morrow evening, take as little liquid as possible, and eat nothing but plain biscuits and dry toast. A little weak brandy-and-water will do you no harm, but either mix it yourself or see it mixed. Be sure that I am not asking you to do all this without a reason, and a very powerful one too. Above all things--silence and secrecy. Burn this as soon as read, and believe me.
"Your sincere friend,
"Cyrus Whitaker."
"Burn this letter," said Kelvin to Pod, when he had read it through twice. When he had seen it shrivelled into ashes, he lay back on his pillows, thinking, and neither stirred nor spoke till Miss Deane came into the room, some quarter o f an hour afterwards.
"Olive," he said, but without turning his eyes towards her, "I feel more thirsty than usual this morning. If you have any barley-water ready-made, I should like you to get me some."
She smiled, and went without a word. Five minutes later, she came back with a small jug and a glass.
"Will you take a little of it now?" she asked.
"Yes, just a little, and then you can put the things on the table within reach." After she had given him a little of the barley-water, he said, "Piper and I have rather a heavy lot of papers to wade through this morning, so, while we are finishing them, I wish you would just step round to the library and get me that book of travels we were talking about last night; or if that one is not at home, some other: you know the sort I like."
As soon as Olive had left the room, Kelvin turned to Pod. "You have got a bottle in your pocket, I suppose?" he said.
"Yes, sir."
"Then pour that barley-water into it, and cork it up tightly."
When this was done, Pod lighted a taper, and Kelvin sealed up the bottle with his own trembling fingers, and stamped it with the monogram of his ring. Then the bottle went back into Pod's pocket.
"No more business to-day," said the sick man, wearily. "Take those papers back to Mr. Bray, and tell him to do the best he can with them. As for yourself, you will go at once to Dr. Whitaker, and give that bottle into his own hands. I suppose I may rely upon your fidelity and discretion in this matter, eh?"
"You may do that, sir, with perfect confidence," said Pod, with much earnestness.
"Yes, I think you are true and honest," said Kelvin, slowly, with his eyes fixed full on the boy's open face. Then, as Pod went out, he added to himself: "That letter of Whitaker's has instilled such a horrible suspicion into my mind, that I no longer know whom or what to believe."
Next morning. Pod smuggled another letter into the hands of his master. It was very brief, but very much to the purpose.
"My dear Kelvin,
"I must see you as quickly as possible, and in private. Your restoration to health, nay, your life itself, may depend on this. No one must know of my visit except Piper; and you must let me know through him when you can arrange to have me admitted to your room without any of your household being aware of my visit. Not a word to anyone. Burn this.
"Yours ever,
"C. W."
For fully half an hour Matthew Kelvin remained buried in thought after reading this letter. Then he said to Pod:
"Instead of Mr. Bray signing the letters this afternoon, you will bring them upstairs to be signed by me." At five o'clock, up came Pod with the letters. Kelvin was sitting up in his easy-chair by this time, and it struck Pod that he looked brighter and better than he had seen him look for some time past. When the letters were signed, and Pod was about to go, Kelvin put into his hand a sealed envelope. "Give this to Dr. Whitaker, and be sure that he has it to-night."
Inside the envelope was a scrap of paper, on which were written these words:
"To-morrow morning at half-past eleven.
"M. K."
CHAPTER III.
VAN DUREN'S DREAM.
Max Van Duren's stay on the Continent, instead of lasting for four or five days only, extended itself to a fortnight. During the whole of that time, Jonas Pringle remained in charge of the premises in Spur Alley. At any other time, the sudden departure of Byrne and his daughter, taken in conjunction with what else Pringle either knew or suspected, would have formed food sufficient for many an hour's restless pondering, it being a matter of principle with Pringle to suspect everybody and everything. But at present his own affairs were quite enough to occupy his thoughts. He had been waiting patiently, week after week, for an occasion to arise which should call Van Duren from home, and so give him an opportunity of bringing to a climax a certain hidden scheme at which he had been patiently working for upwards of a year. The wished-for opportunity was now here, but the advantage he had intended to derive from it seemed as utterly beyond his reach as before. In other words, the key at which he had laboured so long and so patiently, and which, he had fondly hoped, needed but a few more touches of the file to bring it to perfection, still refused--obstinately and maliciously refused--to open the lock of Van Duren's safe. And rarely could there have been a more opportune time to open it than the present. There were notes and gold in it to the amount of two thousand pounds, as Pringle knew full well. If he could only have obtained possession of these notes and this gold within a few hours of Van Duren's departure for Paris, he would have had time to change the notes and get three or four days' clear start before the faintest suspicion that there was anything wrong could have got abroad. It was for this that he had been biding his time so long; it was for this that he had put up with Van Duren's hard words and starvation salary. He had promised himself all along that he would have a day of glorious revenge; that at one bold sweep he would make himself master of enough, if judiciously invested, to secure for himself a comfortable little income for life. But all his delicate manipulation with the file, all his added touches, had hitherto proved ineffective and of no avail. The wards of the lock that held the iron door stubbornly refused to be coaxed; the Open Sesame was not yet found. Pringle was terribly chagrined. Still he never allowed himself to altogether despair. He felt that success was only a matter of time; but he would not have cared for success to come at a moment when there might chance to be little or nothing to reward his labours: he was anxious that it should come now, when the reward would be great. But Van Duren could not stay away for ever, and one afternoon brought the long-expected telegram, announcing that he might be looked for in Spur Alley before bed-time next night.
"Curse him for coming back so soon!" said Pringle to himself, as he tore the telegram to shreds. "If he had only stayed away another day or two, I should have got my key to fit and open the lock. It may be months before he goes out of town again. It may be months before there's as much money in the safe again as there is now. But it's just like my luck!"
Mr. Van Duren reached home about ten o'clock next evening. Pringle was there to receive him, and while Mrs. Bakewell was getting supper ready, the two men went into the discussion of sundry business details. But not more than ten minutes had passed before Van Duren, changing the subject, suddenly said: "By-the-by, I have not made any inquiry after my lodgers. How is Mr. Byrne?--Better, I hope. And Miss Byrne, is she quite well?"
There was a deep longing in his heart to see Miriam again. She had promised to give him a definite yes or no immediately after his return, and he flattered himself that if he read the signs aright, he had little or nothing to fear. He had brought back with him several expensive presents for her. Never in his life before had he bought presents for anybody, his natural instincts being those of a miser; and it was not without a sharp pang that he had brought himself, even in the present instance, to part from his dearly-loved money. These presents had been in his thoughts all the way coming home. He would spread them out before Miriam, and watch her unfold them from their wrappers one by one; and in imagination he saw the sparkle in her eyes and the smile on her lips as she clasped the bracelet on her wrist, or posed before the glass while trying the effect of her new ear-rings. Then, before the freshness and surprise had time to evaporate, he would take her hand and press it passionately to his lips, and implore her to give him her answer once for all. If she condescended to accept his presents, how could he doubt what that answer would be? They would be married before summer was over; and when once Miriam was his wife, he would know how to bend her will to his--know how to teach her what was best for her comfort and his--from his own point of view.
His first look from the cab, when he got in sight of the house, had been to the windows of his lodgers' sitting-room. But all was dark there, and his heart had chilled a little at the sight. It was almost too early for them to have gone to bed: probably they had gone out somewhere to spend the evening. He had secretly flattered himself that Miriam would be there to welcome him--that the least she could do would be to open the door of her sitting-room, ready to greet him with a smile and a pressure of the hand as he went upstairs to his own part of the house. But no Miriam was there to-night, evidently; and then the thought struck him that perhaps no one had told her of his expected return. This thought was not without its consolation; so, hiding his impatience under his usual impassive demeanour, he went indoors as if nothing were amiss, and not till he and Pringle had been talking together for ten minutes did he seem to recollect the existence of any such persons as Mr. Byrne and his daughter.
Pringle had been expecting the question for some time, and was ready with his answer.
"Mr. Byrne and Miss Byrne went away together in a cab two or three days after you left home."
"Went away together in cab!" cried Van Duren. "But at least they left word where they were going, and when they might be expected back?"
"Miss Byrne said they were going to the seaside for the benefit of the old gentleman's health; but there was nothing said about when they might be expected back."
"Strange--very strange!" muttered Van Duren. Some presage of coming evil seemed to touch him already. He looked from side to side of the ill-lighted room, and shuddered. Pringle was watching him narrowly.
"Did they take much luggage with them?" he asked.
"I heard Mrs. Bakewell say that there was nothing left in their rooms but the bare furniture."
"Have any letters been received here for them since they left?"
"Not one, sir."
"How was it you did not send me word, either by telegram or letter, when you discovered that they were going away?"
"Because I was under the impression that they had told you, before you went out of town, that they were going away."
This was not true, but it was necessary that Pringle should excuse himself somehow.
"But did nobody ask them when they might be expected back?"
"Yes; Mrs. Bakewell did. Miss Byrne's answer was that everything depended on the state of the old gentleman's health, and that they might be away only a week, or they might be away a month."
"I would give twenty pounds this very minute to know where they are gone to!" cried Van Duren, emphatically, as he pushed away his chair, and began to pace the room with restless strides.
Pringle sat watching him for a minute or two. That Van Duren was terribly chagrined, he could see plainly enough, and it pleased him to see it. The question with him now was, should he, or should he not tell Van Duren that he knew to what place his lodgers were gone? On the one hand, to keep Van Duren in ignorance of what he, Pringle, knew, would be a source of great gratification to him. But, on the other hand, if he were to reveal what he knew, was there not a faint probability that Van Duren might go in search of them--might leave him alone in the house for a few days longer, and so afford him another opportunity of making himself master of the treasure in the iron safe? This latter thought decided him.
"I can tell you where Mr. and Miss Byrne are gone to, sir," he said, speaking very quietly, "and I won't charge you twenty pounds for the information, either."
"Where are they gone?" asked Van Duren, abruptly, as he brought his walk to a sudden stand.
"Their luggage was labelled for Marhyddoc, in North Wales."
Jonas Pringle certainly never anticipated the effect which his words would have on Max Van Duren. The latter seemed like a man suddenly turned to stone. All the colour fled from his face, his lips turned blue, while into his eyes there came an expression of unspeakable terror. For a few minutes he stood like a man who neither knew where he was nor what he was doing, who had no thought for anything in the wide world but the terrible news he had just heard. Then he put out a hand, and seemed to be feeling for a chair, without knowing what he was about. Pringle took his arm and guided him to a seat.
"A sudden spasm--nothing more," he said. "I shall be better presently."
"Shall I get you a glass of water?" asked Pringle.
Van Duren shook his head. "I have been taken like this once or twice lately," he stammered. "I must talk to my doctor about it."
Mrs. Bakewell came in to lay the cloth for supper. This seemed to rouse him. "I shall not want any supper; I've changed my mind. You need not bring it in," he said. Then turning to Pringle, "To what place did you say that Mr. Byrne and his daughter were gone?" he asked.
"To Marhyddoc, in North Wales."
"Some little fishing or bathing place, I suppose--quiet and salubrious, suitable for an old man like Mr. Byrne. Strange, though, that they never told me they were going. You don't know, Pringle, do you, what their particular reason might be for choosing Marhyddoc, out of all places in the world?"
"I don't know that, sir; they gave no hint on that point," said Pringle. "But I know this for a fact, that old Mr. Byrne was no more deaf than you or me, sir; that his long white hair was nothing but a wig, and his hump nothing but a sham; and that when he liked he could be as active on his feet as any gentleman of fifty or fifty-five can be."
Max Van Duren sat and stared at his clerk like a man thoroughly stupefied. "How do you know all this?" he said, speaking in a low, hoarse voice.
"Because I've seen it with my own eyes," answered Pringle. Then he told him all about the Euston Square episode.
"But what possible object could Mr. Byrne have in disguising himself in the way you mention? and what could be his motive in trying to deceive me?"
"Don't know, sir, I'm sure. But mightn't it all be a plant--a try-on--to get something out of you, either money or information, or something else?"
"They got no money out of me--not a single penny," answered Van Duren. "And as for information----"
In a moment it flashed across his mind that Miriam Byrne had indeed got certain information out of him, which information seemed to connect itself, in some mysterious way, with the journey to Wales. Would she and her father ever have gone to any such out-of-the-way place as Marhyddoc, if he had not told Miriam the story of the shipwreck? But even in that case, what possible object could be gained by their visit to Marhyddoc? The key to the great secret of his life lay there at the bottom of the sea, as far beyond their reach, even supposing them to have known of its existence, as it was beyond his. After all, it was perhaps nothing more than a singular coincidence that had taken them to that particular spot in Wales. Could it be that Miriam had grown to take so deep an interest in him that she wanted to see the very place where he had been shipwrecked? This was a thought that made his heartbeat wildly for a moment or two; but it was quickly succeeded by a feeling of deadly apprehension. What Pringle had told him about Byrne and his disguise, smote him with a sense of some hidden danger which he could not overcome. Why had Miriam pressed him so earnestly to give her all the details of the shipwreck? And why had they said nothing to him of their contemplated journey before he left home?
He could not shake off the feeling that he was in the midst of some great peril. It was quite out of the question, that he should sit quietly down in Spur Alley, and have no knowledge of what was happening in Wales. Even at that moment, what terrible events might be taking place on which his fate might hang as on a thread! And yet again, how was it possible that any harm could happen to him having its origin in what he had told Miriam? He had simply told her that he had lost a box containing the whole of his worldly possessions; but he had given no hint as to the special contents of the box. How was she or her father to connect the Max Van Duren of to-day with the Max Jacoby of twenty years ago? And even granting that they knew his secret so far, there would not, even in that case, be the slightest link to connect him with the murder of Paul Stilling. But more than all else was he rendered uneasy by the fact of Byrne's disguise. There was something in that which he altogether failed to comprehend. He questioned Pringle again and again as to what he had seen at Euston Square, but with no other result than to add a more positive confirmation to what he had been told at first.
"Pringle, I shall go down to Marhyddoc by the next fast train."
"There is one at ten in the morning, sir."
"That will suit me. Mr. Byrne and I have sundry business transactions together which necessitate my seeing him as soon as possible. I need not tell you how annoyed I am to find that he has gone away without leaving a message of any kind for me."
He paused and looked at his watch. "I am terribly tired, and I must try to get a few hours' sleep before starting. You are a light sleeper, I know, and I will trust you to call me at six."
"All right, sir."
"You may also see Mrs. Bakewell for me, and arrange for breakfast at eight. You had better sleep here to-night, and I will go through the remaining letters with you during breakfast."
Then, without another word, he left the room and marched slowly upstairs to bed. Van Duren had spoken no more than the truth when he said that he was terribly tired. He had been travelling continuously for eighteen hours, and was thoroughly worn out. The news told him by Pringle had taken away whatever appetite he might otherwise have had, while leaving the need of some refreshment strongly upon him.
He was never without cognac in his bedroom. Of this he now took a powerful dose, and then flinging himself upon the bed, dressed as he was, in three minutes he was fast asleep.
While sleeping thus, he had a dream--a dream more strangely vivid, more realistic in all its details, than any that he had ever had before.
In this dream he himself was as it were an impersonal being, the spectator of a drama in which he was called upon to play no part. The scene of the drama in question was the bottom of the sea. Through the green and limpid twilight, the floor, covered with sand and shells, and huge, smooth-washed boulders, could be seen stretching away on every side till lost in the dim distance. Fishes of various kinds, some such as are never seen by mortal eye, swam silently to and fro in the liquid depths. The middle distance of the sea was filled up with a huge mass of wreckage and broken timber. There was no need to tell the dreamer of what good ship the wreck was now before him. Even in his sleep, his lips murmured, "That is the Albatross." In and out of the broken bulks, and rotting portholes, and shattered hatchways, strange monsters of the sea, big and little, kept crawling continually.
But presently there was a quick, frightened movement among the fishes, and the dreamer beheld descending slowly from unknown heights a ladder made of stout rope and weighted heavily at the bottom. In a little while the weights touched the ground, and the ladder became stationary and firm. Soon there could be seen, coming down slowly and heedfully, a man in the full costume of a diver, and looking in it no unfit companion for the strange creatures whose haunts he had for a little while invaded. In a few minutes he was joined by another man similarly attired. Together the two men bent their steps towards the wreck. There was no need to tell the dreamer what they were there to look for. Would they find it, or would they not? But in his impersonality he had no further interest in having this question answered than a spectator at a play might have; indeed, so slightly was he interested, that he laughed aloud more than once as he watched the strange, awkward movements of the two men as they clambered around and about the wreck.
Round and about, in and out, they moved without any apparent success. Evidently, the object they had come in search of was not to be found. At length, as if by mutual consent, they walked back to the ladder. One of them had got his foot on the lowermost rung, when his mate touched him on the shoulder and pointed back to the wreck. The sleeper's eyes followed the direction of the man's finger, and saw there--what? The spectral figure of a man standing on the broken bulwarks of the ship, and pointing downwards with outstretched finger to a heap of rotting timber and loose wreckage at its feet. The figure was diaphanous; the broken stump of a mast in front of which it was standing could be clearly seen through it. It seemed to have a wavering motion, very slight, but still perceptible, like that of a flame which quivers by the intensity of its own heat. Although its finger pointed downwards, the face of the figure was bent full on the face of the sleeping man--the same face that he had seen in the glass, haggard, deathlike, with a thin line of black moustache; while its black, inscrutable eyes gazed down through his eyes into his very soul. There was no laughter, no cynicism left in the dreamer now--nothing but an unspeakable horror that stirred his hair and chilled the beating of his heart even while he slept. He could not turn away his eyes from those other eyes that were staring into his; but for all that he could see, as we do see in dreams, everything that was going on around him. He could see the men moving slowly back towards the wreck, in obedience to the invitation of the spectre, of whom they seemed to have no dread. He could see them searching and turning over the heap of mouldering dÉbris at which the finger was so persistently pointed, and presently he could see them drag from the midst of it a small square oaken box, the silver clamps of which were all tarnished and black with the action of the sea. How well he remembered that box! what cause he had to remember it!
Carrying the box carefully for fear lest it should fall to pieces, one of the men brought it presently to the foot of the ladder, close to which, let down from the heights above, hung a cord with a hook at the end of it. To this hook the box was now fastened by one of the men, then a tug was given to the cord, and next moment the box began slowly to ascend, drawn up by unseen hands above.
The finger of the spectre now pointed upward. Soon the box was lost to view, and as it disappeared, the twilight of the scene seemed to darken and deepen and the water to lose somewhat of its limpid clearness. It was as though night were reaching down with its hand of blackness to the bottom of the sea. Slowly but surely the whole scene grew blurred and indistinct as though one filmy veil of darkness after another were being drawn between it and the dreamer's eyes, till at length the familiar walls of the dreamer's bedroom began to grow out of the darkness, and Max Van Duren knew that he was awake, and that the dawn of another day was beginning to broaden in the east. From head to foot he was bathed in perspiration, and he was trembling in every limb. He sat up on the bed and gazed timidly around, as half expecting to see the eyes of the spectre staring at him from some dim corner of the room; but presently he heard a welcome footstep on the stairs outside, and then came the voice of Pringle, telling him that it was time to get up.
CHAPTER IV.
PRINGLE'S DISCOVERY.
Great was the glee of Jonas Pringle when he found himself left alone once more in Spur Alley. When he saw Van Duren off in a cab for Euston Square he mentally bade him good-bye for ever.
So elated was he, so sure did he now feel that the moment of success was at hand, that he went out and bought a tin of preserved lobster, and a bottle of rum, and there and then held high festival with Bakewell and his wife in their dungeon below stairs. He calculated that, at the very soonest, Van Duren need not be expected back for three or four days; and what might not be accomplished even in that short time! He could not labour much during the day at perfecting his duplicate key; he had too many interruptions; he was wanted too frequently in the office by people who called to inquire after Van Duren. But after business hours, when the hush of evening crept over the busy city, then he could work away as long as he liked without fear of interruption. And surely, after all that had gone before, a few short hours only would now be needed to place the long-coveted prize in his grasp.
All that day he remained very restless and unsettled, and seemed unable either to stay long in any one place, or to fix his mind on anything for more than a few minutes at a time.
Van Duren had left him several important letters to write, but after getting as far as the date and "Dear Sir," or "Gentlemen," with one or other of them, his ideas became so mixed up and confused that he could no longer disentangle the subject of one letter from that of another in his thoughts; so that at last he had to fling down his pen in disgust, and rush off for a quarter of an hour to a favourite haunt round the corner. Indeed, he seemed to be running in and out all day long.
Pringle made up his mind that, if requisite, he would work away at his key all night. When Bakewell and his wife were safe in bed--and they rarely sat up after ten o'clock--he would steal downstairs without his shoes, turn on the gas, and shut himself up in the strong room; and there, file in hand, and a fresh bottle of rum by his side, he could work on in safety till five or six o'clock next morning. But perhaps before that time the stubborn lock would yield and the great door fall back on its hinges, and then!---- But such a possibility was almost too much for calm consideration.
Before beginning his work for the night, he would go down to a little water-side tavern that he knew of, where the Shipping Gazette could always be found, together with sundry lists of vessels about to sail from London and other ports. He had not yet decided on the spot to which he should direct his flight, but he could make up his mind on that important point to-night, and pick out the names and dates of sailing of some half-dozen ships, so as to be ready for starting at any minute.