 
Transcriber's Notes:
THE SECRET OF WYVERN TOWERS.*[*Copyright, 1897, by T. W. Speight.]BY T. W. SPEIGHT.
Being an account of the circumstances that shadowed the happiness of Felix Drelincourt--Why two persons proclaimed themselves guilty of a fearful crime, on account of which a vagabond's life was placed in jeopardy--The blotting out of an identity brought about by an unexpected legacy. (Complete in This Issue.)
CHAPTER I.VERY STRANGE TIDINGS.On a certain sunny May morning, about forty years ago, the owner of Wyvern Towers stepped into a lovely glade of Barras Wood, which was a portion of his extensive property. Felix Drelincourt was a man who stood a little over six feet in height. His black, silky hair had a careless wave in it, and his thin mustache, with its up curled tips, was the cause of his often being taken for a foreigner. But his eyes were the most striking feature of a striking personality. They were black, and of an extraordinarily piercing quality, with a sort of veiled, somber glow in them at times, as it might be the glow thrown out from between the bars of some hidden furnace, the fire in which was eating its heart away in the flame of its own burning unrest. It was not easy to judge his age, but one might put it down as being somewhere between eight and twenty and four or five and thirty. This morning he was dressed in a velveteen shooting jacket, with cord breeches and leggings, and was wearing a low crowned felt hat. "What has brought me here on this one morning of all mornings of the year?" he said. "Ah, what! Am I wrong in terming it a force--a magnetic attraction--I was powerless to resist? This is her birthday. Where is she? Does an English sun shine here on this morning, or that of some far off land? Vain questions, and idle as vain." He took a couple of turns from end to end of the glade with compressed lips and bent brows. Then his thoughts again took articulate form. "This is the spot--the forest temple--the grove sacred to the memory of that hour--where, only three short years ago, Madeline told me that she loved me! Only three little years ago, and yet I seem to have lived through a cycle since then. Yes, here our lips met in love's first kiss, and here we vowed that nothing on earth should divide us. Poor fools that we were! We did not dream of treachery; we hardly knew there was such a word." He came to a halt by a sturdy young oak at the upper end of the opening. "It was in the bark of this tree that I cut her initials and my own. Here they are still to convince me I am not dreaming of something which never happened. Time's obliterating fingers have dealt tenderly with them, as though the old graybeard knew they were a lover's handiwork, and remembered a far off eon when he was young himself." At this moment the clock of a distant church began to strike the hour. Drelincourt stood listening till the last stroke had died into silence. "Nine of them," he said. "It's time to think of going back to the Cot. At what hour did I leave it? There's the mystery. It must have been near midnight before I fell asleep, dog tired. The rest is an absolute blank till I---- Ah! Some one is calling me. It sounds like Rodd's voice. What can he want with me at this hour?" Taking a silver whistle from his pocket, he put it to his lips and blew. Its keen, shrilly scream cut the silence, like a knife. Two minutes later a man came brushing roughly through the underwood. At the edge of the glade he paused for a moment, while he took off his hat and mopped his brow. Drelincourt stood motionless, his eyes turned upon him. Under his breath he said: "He has the look of one charged with a message of doom." The newcomer, Roden Marsh by name, was Felix Drelincourt's foster brother. He was a tall, gaunt man, with a pronounced stoop of the shoulders which detracted considerably from his height. He had a long, thin face, a high ridged, prominent nose, thoughtful, deep set eyes, and a profusion of straw colored hair parted down the middle. His clothes, generally more or less worn and threadbare--not from necessity, but because he was both indifferent to appearances and parsimoniously inclined--hung loosely on his lean and bony frame. By strangers he was often taken for the village schoolmaster. As he advanced into the glade, any one familiar with his customary phlegmatic and unemotional manner would have seen at once that he was the bearer of no ordinary tidings. "Thank Heaven I have found you!" were his first words, and there could be no doubt of the sincerity with which they were spoken. "It is a small mercy to be thankful for," replied the other, with the ghost of a smile. "A terrible discovery has been made at the Towers." "Those are strong words, my dear Rodd, but they fail to convey any definite idea to my mind. They may mean much or they may mean very little." "Mrs. Drelincourt has been murdered in her sleep." "Murdered!" Drelincourt staggered back a pace or two, and then, putting forth his right hand, he caught hold of an oak sapling and gripped it hard. For a few seconds his body rocked like that of a man whose brain has been stunned and dizzied by some great shock. "That is indeed a terrible discovery to have made," he went on, after a pause. "Kate dead! It seems incredible; altogether beyond belief." "For all that, it is true." "But what possible motive could any one have for the commission of such a crime?" Roden's thin lips tightened. Evidently the question was one which he either would not or could not answer. "When and by whom was the discovery made?" asked Mr. Drelincourt, after a brief pause. "It was made by Lucille, nearly a couple of hours ago. She went as usual to take her mistress an early cup of chocolate, and--and found her dead in bed." "Go on. Tell me all the particulars known to you." "Mrs. Drelincourt had been stabbed to the heart, most probably while she was asleep." "So! Has the weapon with which the deed was committed been found?" "It had not when I left the Towers." Drelincourt seated himself on the fallen trunk, and resting his elbows on his knees, he bent his eyes on the ground. "As soon as the crime became known," resumed the other, "I sent off a groom on horseback to fetch Dr. Carew. On the way he met Mr. Ormsby and told him the news, and was ordered by him to at once communicate with the police." "A very proper thing to do." "Mr. Ormsby, accompanied by another gentleman, a stranger, had just reached the Towers before I left it." "To come in search of me?" "Exactly. It has taken me nearly an hour to find you. I hurried, first of all, to the Cot, but you were not there. Margery Trant had not heard you leave the house, and was unable to tell me in which direction you had gone. I set out to look for you, and it must have been instinct which directed my steps to this place." He paused. A throstle in the wood piped a few notes and then ceased. "Go on," said Drelincourt, without looking up. "You have something more to tell me." "As I bent over Mrs. Drelincourt's dead body, I found this close by her pillow." As he finished speaking, he drew from one of his pockets a white handkerchief bordered with a thin line of black, and having shaken it out, held it up to the light. On it were three or four crimson stains. "It is yours. Here are your initials in one corner," he said. He had a softly modulated voice, but just now there was no more emotion either in it or his manner than if he had been discussing the state of the weather. Drelincourt started to his feet, his face blanched to the lips. A moment or two he stared at the handkerchief as though it had for him a horrible fascination. Then the eyes of the two men met in a silence which seemed charged with hidden meaning. "A dumb witness, but enough to hang a man," said Drelincourt at length, as he turned away with a shudder. Marsh did not reply, but, after a keen glance round, as if to make sure there was no lurking onlooker, he let the handkerchief drop to the ground, and then, dropping on one knee, he set it alight with a match from his fusee box. Drelincourt, his back supported by a tree, stood looking on in silence till the flame had burned itself out, and nothing was left save a little fine ash, which a wandering breeze presently caught up and frolicked off with into the depths of the wood. "This also I found," resumed Roden. "It was lying open on the writing table in your dressing room at the Towers for anybody to see. It is in your writing, and is dated today." As he spoke, he produced a letter from his breast pocket and handed it to Drelincourt, who took it mechanically and a half dazed man. It was without an envelope, and was simply folded in two. Opening it, he read it in silence and with growing amazement. "An unfinished letter to my friend, Professor Ridsdale. And you say that you found it in my dressing room at the Towers?" "I do." "It refers to certain chemical experiments in which my friend and I are interested. It is the very letter, almost word for word, which I made up my mind to write to him the first thing after breakfast this morning.. And yet I slept last night at the Cot, while you found this an hour or more ago at the Towers!" Again the eyes of the two met in pregnant silence. "Rodd, you must have guessed the truth?" "I have, Felix." "Yes, no other explanation is possible. Yet it seems monstrous--unbelievable. And by my hand! Oh!" He ended with a groan, turned his face aside, and was silent. For once this man, usually so proudly self-centered, so stoically self-repressed, was moved to the depths of his soul as never in his life before. Crossing to him, Roden Marsh grasped one of his hands in both his own. "Felix, between you and me not a word more is needed--I comprehend. You have suffered. Your life has been made a burden almost too bitter to be borne. I have seen and known it for long. I have suffered with your sufferings; my heart has bled for you times without number. I can speak now; hitherto I have had to look on and be dumb." "Yes, you have seen something--perchance much; but you know no more than your eyes have shown you, whatever you may have guessed. Of the details of her treachery--hers, Rodd--which was black as hell, you know nothing. Sit you there and listen. The tale shall be told, now and here, from beginning to end." Roden seated himself on the fallen trunk, while Drelincourt, pacing slowly back and forth, half a dozen yards this way and as many that, began his narrative. "You will not have forgotten that about three years ago Colonel Fenwicke and his niece were staying with the Ormsbys at Denham Lodge, where I was an occasional visitor. I had met Madeline Fenwicke abroad in the course of the previous summer, and had fallen in love with her; but at that time I was comparatively a poor man, and marriage was not to be thought of. In the interim my father had died, and I had succeeded to the entail. There was no longer any reason why I should keep silent. It was in this very glade, Rodd--here--here--that I met my darling and told her my secret! It was here her lips touched mine in love's first kiss. O Heaven! To think of all that has happened between then and now!" He took a turn or two in silence. Roden sat with crossed legs, nursing an elbow with one hand, his chin supported in the hollowed palm of the other. "Madeline and Kate Ormsby had been schoolfellows, and the former had no secrets from her friend. The day following our interview I was called away to London by the illness of my aunt, Mrs. Gascoigne. At Denham Lodge there is a terrace with a stone balustrade, from which a flight of steps leads to the lower garden. As Madeline and Kate were leaning over this balustrade after dark a few evenings later, listening to a nightingale, two people came along the lower walk, a man and a woman, judging from their voices. Said the man, as they drew near: "'The way Mr. Drelincourt has behaved to the girl is common talk in the village. Of course he can't marry her--she's too far beneath him for that--and now they say she's fit to break her heart because he refuses to have anything more to do with her.' "'Perhaps he's grown tired of her and found somebody more to his liking. That's often the way you men have of treating us,' answered the woman. "Oh, come! We're not all as bad as that,' said the man with a laugh, after which they passed out of earshot. "An hour later Madeline wrote me that all was at an end between us. The letter, which should have reached me next morning, was kept back by Kate, and did not come to hand till three days later. Within four hours of receiving it I was at Denham Lodge, only to find that Madeline and her uncle had left there the day before. "My aunt lingered on from week to week. I was her last living relative, and she would not hear of my leaving for longer than a few hours at a time. All I could do was to write a note to Madeline, begging for an explanation, and inclose it under cover to the colonel at his club. A week later my note was returned to me from Paris, together with a few lines from the colonel, stating that thenceforward all communication with me must cease, both on his part and that of his niece. What I had been guilty of which deserved such a sentence I was wholly at a loss to conceive. I could not comprehend the meaning of such an action. "A month later my aunt died. As soon as I was at liberty, I set out for the continent, but nowhere could I come across a trace of those I was in search of. You know what followed a little later: how I was accidentally wounded while out shooting; how I was carried to Denham Lodge, and there nursed back to convalescence by Kate Ormsby." "Some part of what you have now told me I know or guessed already," said Roden; "but not the whole of it." "You did not know how, one day, Kate read to me a passage from a letter professedly written by her correspondent, Lady Linthorpe, in which it was stated that Madeline Fenwicke had been married a fortnight before at Rome. Within six weeks of that day Kate Ormsby had become my wife." Seating himself on the tree by the side of Marsh, he began to manufacture a cigarette. By this time, to all outward seeming, he was thoroughly himself again. The shock of the news brought him by his foster brother had stunned, and in a measure unmanned him for a little while, but his nature was too self-poised, and his nerves too thoroughly under control, to allow of his equanimity being seriously disturbed for any length of time. That which had happened, however much it was to be deplored, belonged to the past, and not all the powers of Heaven and earth combined could alter or undo it. The only thing left him was to face the consequences, and that he was prepared to do. "It was not a fact, then, that Miss Fenwicke was married?" queried Roden, after a pause. "The statement was false from beginning to end. No such letter was ever written by Lady Linthorpe; but not till about a month ago did that fact come to my knowledge, and not till then was I in a position to fathom the depths of my wife's treachery. It was she who arranged the conversation overheard by Madeline that evening on the terrace, the actors in it being the son of her father's bailiff and the governess to her two younger sisters. It was a damnable plot, but it succeeded." He proceeded to light his cigarette, which done, he resumed his slow pacing to and fro. "It was indeed a black business," said Roden. "Did you tell Mrs. Drelincourt of your discovery?" "I did not fail to do so." "And she----?" "Laughed at me with that cold blooded laugh of hers which used to go through me like a knife. In those days, she said, she was such a simpleton as to fancy herself in love with me, and, in any case, she had vowed to herself that Miss Fenwicke should never be my wife. She will never laugh at me again." "I am glad, Felix, you have told me this," said Roden presently. "It has served to make clear much that was obscure to me before." "I have not done yet. Something more remains to be told." Tossing away what was left of his cigarette, Drelincourt sat down again on the felled trunk.
CHAPTER II.AFTER THE TELLING OF THE NEWS."When, soon after my marriage," resumed Mr. Drelincourt, "I furnished the Cot--which, some years before, had been tenanted by my father's gamekeeper--and fitted up a couple of its rooms as a laboratory, I had a double object in view. First of all, I wanted a place where I could prosecute my experiments free from the interruptions and annoyances to which I was subjected at the Towers; and, secondly, because it would be a haven of refuge to which I could escape at any time when matters at home had become so insupportable that I felt I must get away from them for a while lest I should go mad. "Well, five days ago I left the Towers and took up my quarters at the Cot. It was after a scene with my wife of more than ordinary violence. As you know, I some time ago made old Margery Trant a fixture at the Cot, so that she might be on the spot to look after my meals and what not. On previous occasions when I have made the place my temporary home, I have always been able to plunge into my experiments with a vast feeling of relief. Grateful to me was the sense of solitude and of isolation from all my kind. Even you, Rodd, never intruded upon me at such times. "This time, however, I could not settle down to anything. My mind was upset as it had never been before. The discovery of Kate's treachery weighed me down like a hideous nightmare from which I could not free myself. For the first time my experiments had become distasteful to me. My laboratory was as a temple of despair. I spent my days out of doors, sometimes on horseback, at other times on foot, keeping as far as possible from the haunts of men, and only returning to the Cot to eat and sleep when mind and body alike refused to hold out any longer. "It had been dark some hours when I got back last night. I had taken Favorita for a twenty miles' stretch across the downs, and she was as tired as I was. After supping on a biscuit and a glass of Madeira, I lay down, without undressing, on the couch in my study, and a few minutes later fell asleep. The next thing I knew was that I was broad awake--but where, think you? In the library at the Towers! Yes, so far as regarded any waking consciousness on my part, there was no perceptible interval of time between the moment of my closing my eyes in sleep at the Cot and that of my opening them at the Towers. But you have already surmised the truth. I had been walking in my sleep; a habit to which, you know full well, I have been more or less subject from my youth upward. "There, then, I was, suddenly brought back to conscious life by the merest accident. In my sleep, in obedience to some somnambulistic impulse, I had unlocked and opened the old secretaire in the library in which are stored a number of family papers. In shutting down the lid, I had accidentally trapped my finger, and the pain thereby caused me had been sufficient to awake me. I stared around in an effort to collect my amazed faculties. Then the truth dawned upon me. Very similar experiences had been mine before, although not oftener than once or twice since my marriage. Of all that must have happened up stairs prior to the moment of my awaking I retain no faintest shadow of recollection. "Presently I turned and left the house by the way I had entered it--that is to say, by the little side door in the north wing, which the butler has orders to leave unbolted and merely locked when I am from home, so that I can let myself in at any hour of the day or night by means of my pass key. So far as I am aware, not a creature saw me either enter the house or leave it. And then, after a while, I found myself here." A silence ensued, which Roden Marsh was the first to break. "I wholly fail to see how, in the eye of the law, a man can be held to be even partially accountable for anything that may happen, or any deed he may commit, while in a state of somnambulism." Drelincourt lighted another cigarette before speaking. Then he said: "But where are my witnesses to prove I was in that state when this morning's tragedy took place?" "For the matter of that, where are the witnesses to prove you had any hand at all in the affair?" "I know of none." "Then, as it seems to me, all you and I have to do is simply to keep our own counsel, and let the affair work itself out as best it may." To this Drelincourt apparently found nothing to reply. Roden lapsed into a brown study. "No," he said, after a pause, with a shake of his head, "neither legally nor morally can you be held accountable for this morning's work." Drelincourt flicked the ash off his cigarette. "And I am just as convinced that if the crime is brought home to me, the law will find me guilty and hang me in due course. What judge or jury would for one moment give credence to my plea of somnambulism? It would be brushed aside as an attempt, at once foolish and futile, to escape the consequences of my act. Pray disabuse your mind on that point, my dear Rodd. And now, as regards the moral guilt of the act. If the notion of my wife's death, and of the vast difference such an event would make to me, had not been a factor--embryonic, if you will--in my mind, if it had not found receptivity there, would it ever have evolved itself in action in the way it has done?" "For all that, a man who, while sleep walking, kills another cannot be deemed guilty of murder," protested Rodd dogmatically. "Undoubtedly he can, and ought to be so deemed morally; because, believe me, he must already have been guilty in thought--although not necessarily in intention--and, under such circumstances as we are considering, the deed itself is merely the natural outcome of the rudimentary idea." Again Rodd shook his head. Evidently he was not open to conviction. "Had we not better make our way to the Towers without further delay?" he asked. "It is known that I came in search of you, and your prolonged absence may excite suspicion." Drelincourt turned on him with one of his peculiar smiles. "Why hurry ourselves, my dear Rodd? Let the first scare get itself over; we shall be in excellent time for the sequel. What a lovely nook is this! I could linger here for hours. Look how that shaft of sunlight quivers through the crowns of yonder elms. But thou hast no eye for such effects, Rodd; thou art woefully lacking in artistic insight. See! a squirrel. What a pretty rascal it is?" Roden had risen. "I am waiting for you, Felix," he said coldly. "But perhaps you wish me to leave you here and go back alone." Although Roden Marsh addressed his foster brother as "Felix" when they were alone, in the presence of others he always spoke of and to him as "Mr. Drelincourt." "What a restless, weariful mortal thou art," said the latter. "Come, then, let us go!" But scarcely had they taken half a dozen steps before they both came to a stand. Some one in the distance was calling Mr. Drelincourt by name. "Unless I'm mistaken, that is the voice of Dixon, the groom," said Rodd. "He has probably been sent in search of you. Let me go to him while you wait here, and ascertain whether he's the bearer of any fresh news." A moment later he had plunged into the depths of the wood. "I am afraid that in no case will the next few days prove pleasant ones for the master of Wyvern Towers," murmured Drelincourt, as he stood where the other had left him. "Eh, bien! the first act of the drama is over; soon the curtain will rise on the second. I am as curious as if I were merely a looker on to know how the plot will develop itself, and to what extent it will involve F. D. Will it prove to be merely a nine days' wonder and there end? By this time next year it may be merely an old wife's tale, to tell o' nights by the chimney corner. Or the dÉnouement may be something altogether different; a tolling bell, a crossbeam, and a dangling rope. Those who live will see." He turned and began to pace the glade slowly, his hands crossed behind his back. As he walked, his lips moved. "Oh Madeline, Madeline, could I but bring back the hour I met you here, when, soft and low, with many a blush, you told me that you loved me! If I could but wake up and find the time between then and now nothing more than a hideous nightmare fancy of my own! In vain! It is no wild imagining of a disordered brain, but a baleful reality, with far reaching consequences which no human eye can foresee. But here comes Rodd, red faced and out of breath. What a pity it is--and how futile--to take things so seriously as he does." "It was Dixon, as I thought," exclaimed the other as he came up. "Much has happened since I left the Towers. It has been discovered that Mrs. Drelincourt's jewel case has been rifled, and, by Mr. Ormsby's orders, Gumley has been arrested on suspicion of being both the thief and--and----" "The murderer. Why fight shy of the word, my dear Rodd? 'Tis always best to call things by their right names. But who is this Gumley that you speak of?" "An ill conditioned, saucy sort of fellow who was taken on about a fortnight ago to help in the gardens. He and Mrs. Drelincourt had some words the other day, when she lashed him across the face with her riding whip." "Just the sort of thing Kate would do. But this rifling of the jewel case--and last night, too! The coincidence, if one may call it such, is somewhat remarkable." "Had we not better get back to the Towers with as little delay as possible?" "Under the circumstances, it may perhaps be as well to do so. And so this fellow--this Gumley--has been arrested by James Ormsby's orders! I have always regarded Ormsby as a meddlesome fool; now I'm sure he's one." "We have yet to learn under what circumstances the arrest was effected." "True for you, my youthful Solomon. Well, let us be gone. But the coincidence, Rodd, the coincidence--the strangeness of the two things happening together!" Roden Marsh did not reply, but led the way out of the glade. Drelincourt, who was following him, on reaching the edge of it, turned, and lifting his hat, said softly: "Adieu, Madeline!"
CHAPTER III.SIR JOHN CONDUCTS THE INQUIRY.The middle of the library at the Towers was occupied by a large oblong oaken table, with a number of leather seated chairs ranged around it. At the upper end of this sat Sir John Musgrave, who had lately bought the mansion and estate of Grovelands, and was as yet a comparative stranger in the neighborhood. Mr. Ormsby, brother-in-law to Mr. Drelincourt, took the chair on the right of the baronet. Roden Marsh was the first to enter, and, by the baronet's request, he took a seat about half way down the table to the left of the latter. He had brought his writing materials with him. Next came in Chief Constable Draycot and the man Gumley, while a constable in uniform took up a position near the door. By Sir John's direction, Draycot and his prisoner took possession of a couple of chairs somewhat removed from the lower end of the table. Gumley, who was dressed like an ordinary laboring man, cast a comprehensive scowl around, and then, having subsided into his chair, he crossed his legs and stretched them out in front of him, as he might have done in a tap room, and seemed intent on examining the lining of his old felt hat. Sir John, addressing himself to him, said: "Attend to me, Gumley, if you please. Although the evidence I am about to take down this morning is merely preliminary to the fuller inquiry which will have to be held later on, when the same evidence will have to be sworn to a second time, I have deemed it right that you should be present in order that you may have a clear understanding from the first of what you are charged with, and may thereby have every opportunity afforded you of disproving the same when the time for doing so shall have arrived." "All right, guv'nor," answered Gumley, in the sullen way which seemed natural to him. "I can onny say, as I said afore, that I'm as innercent of the charge as the babby onborn." Drelincourt crossed from the window and sat down on a chair a little withdrawn from the table and apart from the others. "This fellow's face is an indictment of itself," he said under his breath, "and with nine people out of every dozen would go far to convict him." "Inform Mrs. Drelincourt's maid that she is wanted," said Sir John to the constable at the door. "A faithful, good hearted creature. My poor sister was much attached to her," remarked Mr. Ormsby, sotto voce, to the baronet. Enter Lucille, a rather attractive looking young woman, not in the least shy or embarrassed by the unfamiliar surroundings among which she finds herself. She favored the two gentlemen at the head of the table with a graceful courtesy as soon as the door was shut behind her, and then went slowly forward. Here a momentary hitch occurred, which was got over by Roden Marsh's production of a Greek Testament from one of the bookshelves. The witness was then sworn in the usual way by the constable in waiting, who had been so often called upon to take the oath in his own person that he had the formula at his tongue's end. When the witness had stated that her name was Lucille Fretin, and that she had filled the position of maid to the late Mrs. Drelincourt from the time of that lady's marriage, Sir John said to her: "You have already, I believe, had some conversation with Mr. Ormsby about this most shocking affair; be good enough to tell us here, on your oath, all that you know about it." "Monsieur and gentlemen," began Lucille, standing with a hand thrust into each pocket of her coquettish looking apron, and speaking with a pronounced French accent, "yesterday madame, my mistress, gave me permission to go to London to see my sister, who is ill. She had the bontÉ to say that I might stay all night, but that I must return by the first train this morning. That is what I do. I come back by the early train, and I reach the house just as the clocks are about to strike seven. Five minutes later I enter madame's room. I call her softly. I say, 'Madame, je suis arrivÉe.' She does not reply. I say to myself, 'She sleeps. I will not disturb her.' Then I go a little nearer, and then--mon Dieu!--I see something which frightens me. It is one big drop liKe blood on the pillow! Then I bend over her, and I see that her eyes are not shut, but open and staring; and then something tells me that they are the eyes of a dead woman." Drelincourt rose abruptly, and going to the side table, he poured out a glass of wine and drank it. Then he went back to his chair. "After that," said Sir John to Lucille, "you were just able to arouse the household, and then you fainted and knew nothing more for some time?" "C'est vrai, monsieur." "How long was it after you came to your senses before you discovered that your mistress' jewel case had been rifled?" "About half an hour, monsieur." "And what led you to make the discovery?" "Madame's jewel case was kept in the top drawer of the bureau in her dressing room. This morning I found the case on the floor near the window. It was empty." "You have furnished the chief constable with a description and list of the missing articles as far as your memory serves you?" "Oui, monsieur." "And at the proper time you will be prepared to swear that you saw the articles in question in your mistress' jewel case yesterday afternoon before you left home?" "Certainement, monsieur." "Had not your mistress, a few days ago, a difference or disagreement of some kind with one of the people in Mr. Drelincourt's employ?" "Oui, monsieur." "Who was the person with whom your mistress had the difference in question?" "Cet homme lÁ," replied Lucille, without a moment's hesitation, pointing a rigid forefinger at Gumley. "Be good enough, mademoiselle, to tell us what you know of the affair." "It was on Saturday last. Madame was dressed to go out riding, and was waiting for her horse to be brought round. That man was in the flower garden close by the long window which opens out of her boudoir. Madame had given him some instructions in the morning which he had not attended to, and she stepped out of the window to speak to him. Madame was a lady who would not have her slightest order neglected. She was very angry. She said something to him in her quick, haughty way, and he answered her back--insolently." "You say insolently. Can you not tell us exactly what he said?" "No, monsieur, I was not near enough to hear; but I could tell from the way the man looked up at madame--he was kneeling on one knee at the time--that his words were insolent." "What happened next?" "Madame lifted her riding whip and lashed him with it three or four times across the head and shoulders." Before anybody could stop him, Gumley started to his feet, and pointing to a livid whelt across his cheek, exclaimed in hoarse accents, "Ay, and here's the mark to bear witness to it--curse her!" Sir John turned on him with an admonitory frown. "Silence, man, or it will be worse for you!" Then Draycot whispered sternly to him, and he resumed his seat, sullenly enough. Sir John turned again to Lucille. "What followed?" "Madame turned and came back indoors, while he--the polisson!--sprang to his feet and shook his clenched hand, and called after her, 'You will live to be sorry for this day's work, my fine Madam, for I'll have my revenge if I swing for it!' The same evening he was discharged by madame's orders." Again Gumley started to his feet. "That's a lie!" he called out. "What I said was, 'If you was my wife, my fine madam, dash my limbs if I wouldn't break every bone in your body, though I had to swing for it!' "Shut up, you fool," said Draycot in a fierce whisper, as he pulled him down into his seat. "Will you be quiet, fellow?" snarled Sir John. Then to Lucille: "You recognize the locket found in this man's possession as having been the property of Mrs. Drelincourt?" "Oui, monsieur." Addressing himself to Drelincourt, Sir John said: "The prisoner's statement is that he found the locket in question a few days ago in a summer house in which Mrs. Drelincourt was in the habit of sitting on fine afternoons, and that he pocketed it with the intention of subsequently disposing of it for his own benefit. In so far he admits his guilt, but he persists in asserting that he had no hand in the robbery, or in the commission of the far more serious crime with which we are more especially concerned at present." Once more he turned to Lucille. "As I am led to understand, you are not prepared to assert positively that you saw the locket in your mistress' jewel case yesterday or the day before?" "Non, monsieur. I do not remember." "Thank you, mademoiselle; I have nothing further to ask you at present." "Merci, monsieur." Having favored Sir John with an elaborate courtesy, she left the room. "There is still one point on which I am not clear," remarked Sir John. "What gave rise, in the first instance, to this man's arrest?" "The onus of that rests with me," replied Mr. Ormsby. "It was in answer to certain questions put by me and Draycot to Lucille that we were told of the threats this scoundrel had made use of towards my poor sister." Once more Gumley could not restrain himself. "Scoundrel, eh?" he said with a scowl. "I wish you had this acrost your face instead o' me!" "Gumley, you are unbearable," said Sir John, in his most severe accents. "The next time you attempt to interrupt the proceedings I will have you removed." "Then it was," resumed Mr. Ormsby, "that I suggested to Draycot that this man should be found--we were given to understand that he had not yet left the village--and that both he and his lodgings should be searched. The result was that one of the missing articles--a locket--was found on his person." "But nothing else has been found?" It was Mr. Drelincourt who asked the question. Draycot took on himself to answer it. "Not yet, sir. His lodgings will be thoroughly searched in the course of the next hour." Gumley felt compelled to make another protest. "As I said afore, and as I say agen, I know nothen about the murder and nothen about the robbery. I found the locket in the----" "Silence, fellow!" Almost yelled Sir John. "Once for all, let me caution you to hold your tongue." But Gumley was determined to have the last word. "All I wants is to speak the truth," he growled sullenly. "As it happens," resumed Mr. Drelincourt, "I am in a position to confirm at least one portion of this man's statement. Some time in the course of last week my wife spoke to me about having missed the locket now in question, which was rather a favorite with her, and which she was afraid she had lost a day or two previously somewhere in the grounds. Such being the case, I fail to see how the locket could have formed part of the missing jewels." Sir John and Mr. Ormsby exchanged looks. Gumley pricked up his ears. The sort of sullen apathy which had hitherto marked his demeanor vanished. From that moment he became a different man. "Your statement, Mr. Drelincourt, is certainly a strong point in the prisoner's favor," remarked Sir John, after a few moments' cogitation. "Still, bearing in mind the threats made use of by him towards Mrs. Drelincourt, I do not feel myself justified in sanctioning his release. The coroner's inquest will take place at the earliest possible moment, and I have decided to remand the prisoner till tomorrow, when he will be brought up before the bench of magistrates at Sunbridge." Draycot nudged his prisoner. "Now, then!" he said. Gumley stood up, and addressing himself to Mr. Drelincourt, said: "God-bless you, sir, for helpin' to get a pore, innercent cove out of a scrape wot he's got into through no fault of his'n." Then, as he followed Draycot, he said to himself, "It was a lie, though, wot he told about the locket. Now, wot's his little game, I wonder?" The baronet, having filled up and signed the necessary commitment order, handed it to Roden Marsh to give to the superintendent. Rodd then gathered up his papers and followed the others out of the room. Sir John stood up and stretched himself. "In spite of your evidence about the locket, Mr. Drelincourt," he said, "I am strongly of opinion that in Gumley we have got hold of the real criminal." "My own opinion exactly," responded Ormsby. "The scoundrel's countenance is enough of itself to proclaim him guilty." "If we were all judged by our looks, how few of us would escape condemnation," remarked Drelincourt dryly. "For my part, I am strongly inclined to believe in the fellow's innocence." "My dear Drelincourt, you surprise me," remarked his brother-in-law, as he crossed to the side table. "It is possible, Mr. Drelincourt," suggested the baronet, "That your suspicions point in some other direction." "No, I have no suspicions--none whatever. For all that, I have a sort of intuitive belief in Gumley's innocence." "Time will prove." "Possibly so. But there are some mysteries which time never solves." "My experience as a magistrate convinces me that they are few and far between. You remember what old Chaucer says: 'Murder will out, that see we day by day'--words as true now as they were five hundred years ago." Mr. Drelincourt looked slightly bored. Sir John consulted his watch. "Later than I thought. I have an appointment at Sunbridge, and am already overdue." "And I, too, must be off," remarked Ormsby. "I quite expect to find my wife in hysterics when I get home. She was awfully attached to poor Kitty." "For the present, then, goodby," said Sir John to Drelincourt, as he proffered his hand. "To attempt to condole with you under such a terrible blow would be an impertinence on my part; but this I must say--that you have my heartfelt sympathy." "Of that I am quite sure, Sir John." They shook hands cordially, and then Drelincourt crossed and rang the bell. "Ormsby, I shall see you in Sunbridge later in the day," said Sir John. Three seconds later he was gone, shown out by Simmons. "Now to get rid of this pompous fool," said Drelincourt to himself as he came forward. Now that the two were alone, Ormsby had resumed his most lugubrious expression. "Felix," he began, "I am at a loss for words wherewith to express a tithe of what I feel on this most heartrending occasion." "Then I wouldn't try to find any, if I were you. There are some things which won't bear talking about, and this is one of them." "That seems rather unfeeling, doesn't it?" "Are one's feelings to be gauged by the amount of talk one may give utterance to? Are there not occasions when silence may be the heart's most eloquent tribute?" "Possibly--possibly," replied Mr. Ormsby, with a little cough behind his hand. "I dare say you are right--from your point of view. If you would like Octavia to come and look after matters at the Towers for the next week or two, I am sure that she----" "Not for the world! I am a strange fellow, Ormsby, as I dare say you have found out before today. The more I am left to myself just at present, the better I shall be pleased." "Well, well, as you will. Still, I cannot but feel sure that my wife would have been a great comfort to you in your affliction. She is so truly sympathetic." "Good day, Ormsby," said the other abruptly. "I know you mean well, and I thank you. But I'm all on edge just now and I can't talk any more." "I can sympathize with you, my dear fellow. I have something of the same feeling myself." With that he held out his hand. "Ah, excuse me, but I sprained my wrist this morning." He crossed to the fireplace and rang the bell, and then stood grasping his right wrist with his left hand. "That's unfortunate. Well, au revoir," said Ormsby, as he took possession of his hat and gloves. The attentive Simmons stood holding the open door. "I'm nearly sure he shook hands with Sir John," muttered Ormsby, as he made his exit. "What a queer, ill-conditioned beggar he is! Still, I wish he would have had Octavia here. She would have been just in her element on an occasion like this. And then, she is so truly sympathetic." No sooner did Drelincourt find himself alone than he strode to one of the windows and flung open the casement. "At last I can breathe! For a little while the torture is relaxed, but only for a little while. What would I not give if the next few days were well over! This fellow Gumley must be saved at all risks. Of course, it was he who stole the jewels; and yet for the sake of a wretch like this I shall have to lie and perjure myself again and again. To me such a necessity is more hateful than I can express. The mere thought of such comradeship in crime sends a shudder down my spine. For all that, he must be saved! All may go well if only the rest of the jewels remain undiscovered. In that case, my lie about the locket ought to be enough to clear him. Faugh! Let me try to get this greasy smelling knave out of my thoughts for a while." There was a box of cigars on the top of one of the low bookcases, from which he now proceeded to select one and light it. "'Murder will out'--so quotes Sir John. But does that follow as a matter of course? Facts--indisputable facts--prove the contrary. Though Nemesis may dog the footsteps of a man for years, yet oftener than we wot of she fails to overtake him. In any case, the man who, after having incurred a penalty--whether with wide open eyes or as the result of circumstances outside his control--shrinks from facing the consequences when they are brought home to him, is both a fool and a coward. That is not the stuff, I trust, of which Felix Drelincourt is made."
CHAPTER IV.A BACKWARD GLANCE.Presently Mr. Drelincourt quitted the library, and, traversing the entrance hall, went up the fine old oaken staircase at the farther end. But on reaching the spacious landing at the top, instead of turning to the right in the direction of his own and his late wife's apartments, he turned to the left, and after going some way down a corridor which gave access to sundry rooms, he came to a red baize covered door--the others were all of oak or walnut--with a bell pull pendent at one side of it. At this he gave a tug, which was responded to by a faint tinkle somewhere inside. Half a minute later a little wicket in the door was drawn back, and a woman's face appeared at the opening. On perceiving who it was that had rung the bell, the face, an unusually grave one, for the most part, brightened perceptibly. "Will you be kind enough to open the door," said Mr. Drelincourt. Sometimes he contented himself with asking a question or two at the wicket, and did not enter. The woman nodded, and shut the wicket. Then from the bunch of keys at her waist she selected one, and with it opened the door, which was shut and relocked as soon as Mr. Drelincourt had crossed the threshold. But at this point it may be as well to take leave of the master of Wyvern Towers for a while, and in order that the reader may have a due comprehension of what has yet to be told, make him acquainted, in as brief terms as may be, with certain particulars having reference to that person's family history, and to the relations which had existed between his father and himself. The late Colonel Drelincourt had been twice married, and had left behind him two children--Felix, his son by his first wife, and Anna, his daughter by his second. At the time of the colonel's death the former was twenty three years old, and the latter thirteen. His second wife had predeceased him by a few years. As a young man, Felix had serious differences with his father, whose pet project it was that his son should follow his own profession. This, however, Felix resolutely declined to do. He had no taste whatever for soldiering; nor, on the other hand, did a political career hold out any attractions for him. He was a studious and bookishly inclined man, addicted to experimental chemistry, and with a strong liking for travel and exploration. Of sport, in the common acceptance of the term, he knew nothing and cared as little; but he had a fondness for horses, and was an intrepid rider. The colonel, a military martinet of the old school, who held a blind obedience to one's superiors to be one of the main rules of conduct, never forgave his son's refusal to follow in the course he had prescribed for him. At his death it was found that, outside the entailed property, he had left everything he was possessed of to his daughter, to whom he had been passionately attached. He had married her mother for love (like many another man, he had never touched even the fringe of romance till he was past his fortieth year), whereas he had married his first wife for her dowry. Thanks to certain arrangements made by his mother, Felix was in a measure independent of his father even before he became of age. About three years prior to the colonel's death a terrible mischance befell his daughter, at that time in her tenth year. It was Christmas week, at which season a certain amount of license is often winked at among the servants in country houses. In the dusk of afternoon, and in the gallery at the head of the stairs, Anna encountered what she took for an apparition, but which, in point of fact, was merely one of the servants dressed up in a sheet, and having her face whitened, on her way to join in some mummeries below stairs. The child, who from her birth had been of a highly excitable temperament, with hysterical tendencies, gave one piercing scream, and fell to the ground in a fit, which was followed by several others, and for some days her life was despaired of. Gradually, however, she regained her health, and everybody hoped--her father, of course, most of all--that the shock her system had undergone had left no ill effects behind it. One of the colonel's first acts after his daughter's seizure had been to send for Mrs. Jenwyn, with whose services, only a little while before, he had seen fit to dispense. It was Mrs. Jenwyn who had nursed his wife through the long illness which had preceded her death, and it was in fulfilment of Mrs. Drelincourt's dying request that he had installed her in the dual position of nurse and governess to his motherless girl, who, in the course of time, had learned to love her almost, if not quite, as well as the parent she had lost. Whether it was a feeling of jealousy that his child should care so much for any one but himself, or some other whim, which caused him to give Mrs. Jenwyn notice to leave, was known only to himself. In any case, Anna took the separation greatly to heart, far more so than her father was aware of, for the child's deepest moods were silent ones; of what she felt most she talked least, and the colonel was not skilled in reading below the surface. Now, however, he blamed himself with undue severity for having sent Mrs. Jenwyn about her business. Again and again he told himself, most unreasonably, that had she been on the spot the mischance would never have happened. It was some consolation to him to witness the naÏve and touching delight with which Anna welcomed Mrs. Jenwyn's return. For all that, as he quitted the room, leaving them together, he could not help saying to himself, with a touch of bitterness, "She loves that woman better than she loves me." Unfortunately, the colonel's fondly cherished hope that the shock to his daughter's system would entail no after consequences was not destined to be fulfilled. To all appearance, Anna had regained her health and strength in full measure, and her fright was a matter six months old, when, without any warning, so to speak, an unaccountable change came over her which found its physical expression in a state of irritability and low fever, supplemented by insomnia. Dr. Carew was called in, and prescribed, but declined to commit himself to any expression of opinion. On the fifth day from the beginning of her attack, Anna fell into a deep, trance-like sleep which lasted eighteen hours. When at length she awoke, everything that had happened to her during the six months which had intervened since the date of her fright was lost to her memory. She went back and took up her life again at the point where consciousness had left her at the moment of her scare in the gallery. All Mrs. Jenwyn had taught her in the interim was clean gone. A book half read at the time she now began afresh and finished, and she resumed the practice of a piece of music on which she had been engaged during the forenoon of that unfortunate day. The break in her memory was absolute and complete. By Dr. Carew's recommendation, no attempt was made to enlighten her. Everybody about her accommodated themselves to circumstances as she believed them to be. The doctor trusted to time. It was all he could do. Any attempt at a cure on his part, as he was not slow to recognize, might have been productive of more harm than good, and possibly have entailed consequences he would have been loath to face. He watched the case with the deepest interest, but beyond prescribing a harmless draft or two, he left nature to work after her own fashion. At the end of a fortnight Anna fell into another trance-like sleep, and awoke from it her proper self. The two preceding weeks were blotted from her memory. She had merely had a longer and sounder sleep than ordinary, from which she had awaked feeling strangely refreshed. From that time forward the same thing had happened to her, at irregular intervals, every three or four months. After certain preliminary symptoms, which hardly ever varied, she would fall into a deep sleep, always to awake at that moment of her life which preceded her meeting with the supposed apparition in the gallery. At the end of ten days or a fortnight, and after another sleep, she would become her normal self again. She had been ten years old at the time of her first attack, and she was now eighteen. A lovely girl (but with no touch of resemblance to Felix), and of an affectionate and amiable disposition; bright and cheerful enough at times, but, for the most part, with a vague shadow of melancholy brooding over her, as of one who realized in all its bitterness the fact that there was about her a something which set her apart from her fellows; for long before now the full measure of her affliction had become known to her. Mrs. Jenwyn had given Colonel Drelincourt her promise on his deathbed that she would never leave Anna while it was the latter's wish that she should stay with her. In order, however, to make assurance doubly sure, the colonel had left instructions in his will that the sum of two hundred guineas per annum should be paid to Mrs. Jenwyn out of his estate so long as she should retain her position by his daughter's side. As already remarked, the colonel had bequeathed to Anna all that it was in his power to leave her. An ample sum was settled on her, under the control of trustees, during her minority, and when she should come of age she would find herself mistress of an income of twelve hundred a year, with absolute power over ten thousand pounds of the gross sum capitalized by her father. About a year before his death, and when he had no prevision of that event being so near, Colonel Drelincourt had caused to be set aside, and specially arranged for their use, a suite of rooms in the left wing of the Towers, to which his daughter and Mrs. Jenwyn could retire whenever Anna's symptoms gave warning that one of her periodical attacks was imminent. He had also caused a considerable space or ground on the same side of the house to be walled in, so as to form a private garden in which the two could obtain a sufficiency of fresh air and exercise without being overlooked or spied upon by any visitors at the house, or by any casual outsiders, there being a right of public footway through the park at the back of the Towers, as a consequence of which stragglers were sometimes found in those parts of the grounds where they had no business to be. When, at his father's death, Felix Drelincourt came into the property, matters, so far as they related to his half sister, were in no wise changed. All he did was to cut down the staff of servants, and to request Mrs. Jenwyn to take upon herself the control of the establishment, he himself having no intention at that time of settling permanently at the Towers. Not till after his marriage, some three years later, did he make it his home. When talking over future arrangements with his prospective wife, he had given Miss Ormsby clearly to understand that his marriage was to alter nothing so far as his half sister was concerned. Anna's home, as heretofore, would still be at the Towers, and the special suite of rooms in the left wing still be reserved for the occupancy of herself and Mrs. Jenwyn at certain seasons.
CHAPTER V.IN THE LEFT WING.And now to revert to Mr. Drelincourt's visit to the left wing of the Towers on the day his wife came by her tragic end. His first question, in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenwyn, after the baize covered door had been locked behind him, was: "You have heard the news?" "I have, sir, and I need not tell you what a dreadful shock it was to me. Poor lady! Poor unhappy lady!" Drelincourt bit his lip for a moment. Then, "You have not breathed a word about it to Anna?" He had taken a chair, after motioning Mrs. Jenwyn to another. "Certainly not, sir. I should not dream of doing so without your permission. Indeed, I am far from sure that just now it would be advisable to say anything to her about it." "My own opinion exactly. The news must be kept carefully from her while she is as she is. It will be time enough to break it to her when she is herself again. Of course, her present attack has not yet run its course?" "Oh, no, sir; it is only five days since she was taken. We may calculate on another week at the least." "So much the better. By that time the funeral and other matters will be over and done with." Drelincourt sat for a few moments without speaking, toying with his watch-guard. Mrs. Jenwyn knew better than to break the silence. At this time, judging from appearances, she was somewhere about forty years of age. Her features were regular and refined, and she would still have been accounted a very handsome woman but for the abnormal pallor of her complexion, her sunken cheeks, and a certain worn and tired look about her keenly watchful eyes, with their slightly contracted lids, which might be the result of insomnia. Like her hair, her eyes were of a brown so dark as in some lights to be hardly distinguishable from black. Although her face was essentially feminine in certain of its aspects, its dominant expression was one of innate resolution, and of an amount of will power rather unusual in one of her sex. "A woman of great force of character, who would do and dare much to gain her ends, whatever they might be," was Mr. Drelincourt's pithy summing up of her. For all that, there must have been a sunny corner hidden somewhere under the husk of her almost frozen reserve, or Anna Drelincourt--so susceptible to chills of every kind--would not have learned to love her and cling to her as she did. Scarcely less dear had Anna's mother held her. Beyond the fact that she was a widow, Drelincourt knew nothing of her history or antecedents, and did not seek to know anything. He had accepted her, so to speak, as a legacy from his father, and had soon learned to like and respect her for herself. There was something about her self-contained character, with its reserve of quiet force, which appealed specially to him. She was the very woman--one out of a thousand--he told himself, for the peculiar post she occupied, and he was careful to treat her with every consideration. Some little time passed before Mr. Drelincourt spoke again. To Mrs. Jenwyn he seemed to be debating some point with himself. At length he said: "Contrary to what I had ventured to hope before they came together, my wife always seemed to be very fond of Anna, and to make much of her. That, at least, is how matters presented themselves to me. What is your opinion, Mrs. Jenwyn? You were in a position to observe things from a far more intimate point of view than I was." His eyes were fixed on the matron; she could not choose but answer him. Her dark, prominent brows came together for a moment; a little wave of color tinged her pale cheeks for a second or two. "A question so plainly put, Mr. Drelincourt, ought to be met by a plain answer. Is not that so?" "Why, certainly, Mrs. Jenwyn." "Now that Mrs. Drelincourt is unhappily no more, there seems to me no reason why I should any longer refrain from mentioning to you a certain conclusion which I could not help arriving at on the occasion of Mr. Guy Ormsby's visit at the Towers a few months ago." Mr. Drelincourt sat up in his chair. "Go on, please," was all he said. "To such an extent and so openly did Mrs. Drelincourt make it her business to throw Miss Anna and Mr. Guy together, that at length I could not help having my eyes opened to the ulterior object she had in view. What at first had been nothing more than suspicion was turned into certainty by a few words between brother and sister which I accidentally happened to overhear." "And that object was--" "The marriage--not just now, but after Miss Anna shall have come of age--of the two young people." It was not often that Drelincourt was betrayed into an expression of surprise, but he was on this occasion. "What!" he exclaimed. "Scheme to wed her brother to a girl mentally afflicted as my poor sister is? It would be nothing less than monstrous." "Mrs. Drelincourt, sir, professed to believe, with Dr. Pounceby, the London specialist, that Miss Anna would grow out of her affliction in the course of a few years." "An opinion, I am grieved to say, wholly opposed to that of an equally eminent man--Dr. Ferrers." "And then, sir, it behooves Mr. Guy Ormsby, as a younger son without expectations, to look out for a wife with money." "Why do you say that, Mrs. Jenwyn?" "I am merely repeating Mrs. Drelincourt's own words to her brother." "So!" Then to himself he added: "Evidently between my wife and this woman there was no love lost." He seemed to consider for a few moments, and then he said: "But tell me this, Mrs. Jenwyn: Did Anna seem to take to young Ormsby in the way you think my wife would have liked her to do--that is to say, did he succeed in entangling her affections? For I have no doubt he was ready enough to follow up his sister's precious scheme." "That is more than I can say, sir, with any degree of certainty. Sometimes I am inclined to think one thing, and sometimes another. Miss Anna is not an easy person to read." "Not an easy person to read? One of the most transparent and simple minded girls in existence." A thin smile flickered for a moment over Mrs. Jenwyn's bloodless features. She had a soft, level voice, which, while it fell soothingly on the ear, was not without a certain penetrative quality of its own. "Excuse me, sir, but you don't know so much of her as I do, or you would scarcely say that. You think her transparent and easy to read, whereas there are depths in her character which not even I, who am with her every day and all day, have yet succeeded in sounding. You can never make sure beforehand of what she will either say or do in reference to any given subject. In short, Miss Anna is a law unto herself." Drelincourt looked puzzled and only half convinced. It was not pleasant to him to be told that he had so completely misread the character of his seeming simple minded sister. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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