The Castle by the Sea/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE TRAIL
IT was but civil and friendly and kind that I should go down to the village next morning to inquire after Miss Forrest. She had been injured in a gallant endeavor to serve me, and I owed it to myself and her to show some concern for her. As I went down the winding deep-rutted lane, embowered in green, through which a skein of waving sunlight struggled from above, it occurred to me for the first time to ask how she had come to see the intruders. In the confusion of the previous evening I had quite forgotten to think of this, nor had she thought of explaining. And so I put the query as soon as ever I could with propriety after my solicitous inquiries. Her ankle, she said, was nearly well, and it had been foolish of her to make such a fuss. It had been Christobel who made the fuss, as you may remember. I wanted to tell her she was an angel, but I only slangily told her she had behaved "like a brick"—which seemed, however, an acceptable testimonial.
"Yes, and I was afraid," said Miss Fuller, with large impressive eyes.
"You!" said I, and then put my question.
"Oh, we had taken a little walk in the evening after dinner," said Perdita calmly, "and we happened to see the men at the gates."
"And I would n't go. Was n't it dreadful of me?" said Miss Fuller, anxious for my condemnation. "I hung about after Perdita had left me, hoping she would come back, but she did n't, and so I got frightened and went home. I ran nearly all the way."
She was bent on humiliating herself, and exalting her friend, but I thought Miss Forrest was not over-pleased.
"It was much more risky down the lane," she said indifferently.
"It was like entering the imminent deadly breach," I said lightly. "But now I must have the evidence of my eyes as to these ankles." Miss Fuller started and looked aghast. "I must see how you walk," I said, firmly, by way of explanation. Miss Fuller seemed relieved. Perdita made no sign, but merely smiled.
I insisted, and was not reluctant to lend my hand to the persuasion, and she yielded. She walked triumphantly to the door of the cottage, and looked back at me defiantly.
"Right out," I commanded. "You are concealing something in this half-light."
"Indeed, I'm not," she flashed indignantly, and marched out upon the stone pathway towards the gate.
I followed, leaving, I am thankful to say, Miss Fuller in the doorway.
"You 're just a little bit of a humbug as a patient," I told Perdita, as I joined her.
"You are much more as a doctor," she retorted.
I looked back. Miss Fuller had kindly vanished. I have always believed that no one in the wide world whom I have ever met had so much vicarious sentiment as Miss Fuller. She was a thoroughly nice woman, and quite handsome.
Perdita leaned over the gate, observing the morning eights of the village, and I followed her example. Her face was of a fine clarity charged with life, and neither pale nor rosy. Like herself, like her gait, like every instinct of her spirit and body, it was vivid and brilliant, yet gave one the impression of restraint. Through her habit of life and convention only now and then did her large individuality surge up and overflow. As a maid she still kept it within gates, with the promise of a rare development. We talked at random, for I was thinking, and content to see her and think of her. And then she turned her full face to me.
"I wanted to tell you, Mr. Brabazon, that I thought I recognized one of the men," she said slowly.
I waited, watching the trouble in her eyes. "One entered the gate just before we got there," she proceeded, "and shortly afterwards another man followed. I recognized that one."
Still I waited. "He was a fisherman I have seen at the Point," she said.
"Oh, there are probably local scoundrels in it, whatever it is," I said.
"You see, we were in the shadow of the wall," she went on, without heeding, and still deliberately, as though she would rather not, "and he probably did not notice us. I could see him clearly, a tall, dark, lean man."
"Yes?" said I, seeing she had not finished.
"It was his furtive and excited air that struck me, and it was that made me suspect something. I thought you ought to know."
"It was more than good of you; it was courageous and fine."
"I ran through the meadow, and thinking I heard footsteps I hid for a moment in the dark shadows of the lime avenue. It was there I saw the second man."
She paused, and turned her eyes away; they rested, I noticed, across the village green. I followed them, and saw in front of Mrs. Turner's garden, lounging with his arms over the gate, Mr. Eustace.
"Did you see him clearly?" I asked quietly.
"No; not very," she said, seeming relieved that I asked no more. "It was more the figure that suggested it. Perhaps I ought not to have said so much; it was only a suspicion. But I felt you ought to know. He was hiding in the shrubbery. It was then that I made sure something was wrong, and I ran on to the Castle."
I was silent a moment. "It is all so strange that I was prepared for anything—even for that," I said.
She looked at me, grateful, I conjectured, that I had understood without words.
"I don't think it's credible somehow," she said.
"We must take everything as credible, till it can be disproved," I replied. "I 'll devise some means of putting this suspicion to the test. We 'll only take it at that at present, shall we?"
"It would be a relief to me if you would," she said with a sigh. "I should much prefer it, and I thank you for understanding."
The conversation had drawn us closer, and I left her with a beating heart. I went up the lane, hardly aware what I was doing, and then remembered that I had a message for Hawes. I saw him, and returned, passing the "Feathers"; and, moved by an impulse, I entered the doorway of the inn.
It is a custom in English villages, a surviving relic of ancient and more intemperate times, to interrupt the morning work by a glass of ale or stout. Oddly enough, men who will do this every day of their lives would consider an afternoon glass as a sign of dissipation, even of insobriety. It was between eleven and twelve, and several of the village tradesmen were gathered for their refreshment in the little parlor. It was not until I heard his voice from behind the stout grocer, that I knew Eustace was among them.
"I say, have you got any stamps?" he called in his frank, easy, lusty way.
The grocer turned, and disclosed him to me, where he sat by the mantelpiece, with a couple of letters in his hand, and a cigarette sticking by his upper lip. The innkeeper bustled to a jar to search in it, and, finding what he sought, held out six stamps to his customer, who reached lazily to take them. As he did so, one of the letters he held slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the floor, carried with a sidewise plunge past the grocer's legs to me. I picked it up, and handed it back, but the addressed side had fallen uppermost, and I could not but read it. I must have seen the name at the time, but when I cast my mind back that same evening, I could not recall it. That was of no consequence. It was not the name that struck me; it was the writing. It remained in my mind's eye with a familiar effect. Where had I seen it? I took my draught, and left; and half-way up the ascent I remembered. The handwriting was that which I had found in the stolen note-book the first night of my arrival at the Castle!
This unexpected identification brought me to a standstill; for I awoke from a course of thought to find myself staring with unseeing eyes across the hedgerow into a flowing field of corn. The discovery opened a whole world of possibilities and hazards. To say the truth, as I now confessed to myself, I had never really suspected Eustace of more than presumptuous assurance; but this connection of the note-book with him set him in darker colors. It associated him with the "ghost," with the intruder in the gallery, with the person who had inaugurated all my suspicions as to the plot. I was staggered by the revelation.
But after I had resumed my walk, my amazement gave way to a consideration of policy. In the face of this, what was to be done? I pondered the problem carefully, but I could see no road of definite and final action open to me. I had still no evidence on which to take proceedings; still I could not authentically connect Eustace with the burglar. I could, therefore, only play a waiting game still, but now one with an obvious clue. In a word, attention must be concentrated on Eustace, must be shifted from the present theatre of suspicion, and directed on him.
Somehow he now assumed in my eyes, quite against all principles, a position of greater dignity. He was not the mere lubberly horse jockey he had seemed, but the mainspring of a criminal gang. As such he claimed my respect for a cleverer man than I had ever imagined him to be. I took it that his superficial appearances and his bluff assurance were in reality astute disguises, and I wondered at the naturalness they had. At the same time I wondered also why I had not been perspicacious enough to see him before in his proper sinister proportions.
I was resolved to keep my eye on Mr. Eustace, and I was confirmed in my determination that same afternoon by a glimpse of a figure in the lanes about Southington. Mr. Naylor had returned. He stalked along in a lordly manner, striking idly at the hedge with his stick, his Homburg hat correctly dented, and the smoke flowing from his fragrant cigar. From underneath his long lashes his feminine eyes swept my face, and resumed their modest survey of the fair prospect. I passed him as if he had been a mere rustic and not an obvious and elegant Londoner; but I thought the more when I was safe behind the Castle walls. Mr. Eustace had paid a visit to the house the previous evening with one of his confederates—I knew so much from Perdita. And here was his partner, no doubt, walking the hill in lofty indifference. The two facts augured some new movement. I should be on my guard. I fell into a deep reflection, and at last came out of it with a plan. But for that I must wait till dusk, and it was at dusk that I made an alarming discovery.
I had pity on the abashed and penitent Peter Toosey, and invited him to tea, when he discoursed with modest elegance on art. Thereafter we strolled in the garden in that delicious summer evening, and I displayed my borrowed demesne before his admiring eyes. Seeing his appreciation, I gave him the liberty of the grounds in a friendly way, and left him to his devices. I explained to Mrs. Jackman that I was going for a stroll and should not need supper till late, and then I set off. It was about eight o'clock now, and the light was still full and clear. I went briskly down the lane with the express design of discovering how Mr. Eustace would spend his evening. When I had reached the village I directed my steps without faltering to Mrs. Lane's cottage, and marching up the pathway rapped on the door.
So soon as I was admitted into the parlor, to which the girls had just retired from their evening meal I had to find an excuse for my visit—for what I had to say was not to be said before Miss Fuller. That, at least, I had resolved—not only to keep a secret between us, but also to maintain our initial reservation of the delicate understanding. It was not, however, I found, difficult, thank goodness, to get rid of Miss Fuller. She was a most intelligent woman, and she faded away like a snow-wreath in June. I thought that Perdita seemed anxious to keep her, and I winced at that; but I think it emboldened me in my tactics all the same. I threw her a most significant look, which had the effect of arresting her attempts to retain her companion. We were alone.
"I did n't want to speak before Miss Fuller," I began eagerly. "I did n't know whether she knew about—the visitor last night."
"She always knows what I do," said Perdita coolly. "Of course I told her."
I might have been taken aback by this little snub, if I had not had some news to impart; and so I hurried on.
"I want you to allow me, if you will, to sit here for a little this evening."
Her fine eyebrows went up slightly. "Have you been burnt out of your house, Mr. Brabazon?" she asked with interest.
"No," I stammered, "but the fact is this window is the only place I know which commands the green, and I have reasons for wanting to watch it just now."
She looked at me inquiringly, and with an altered expression.
"I have something to add to your recognition last night," I said, weighing my words importantly; and then I told her.
She listened with a puzzled face, and then rose with a display of embarrassment. "I can't think you are right," she said. "Miss Harvey says he is a gentleman. She likes him very much. He plays the fiddle," she added irrelevantly.
"Nero fiddled," I reminded her, "and as for his being a gentleman, all I 've got to say is that if he is he succeeds in assuming the groom most triumphantly."
She seemed perplexed. "Of course you can, if you think it is right and necessary," she said. "But—" she paused.
I had not used the window yet, but I happened to give a glance out of it now; and I also rose, and quickly, to my feet. I might have been content to sit and argue and discuss the situation with her all the evening, quite oblivious to the gradual loss of the opportunity for which I was pleading. But that casual glance brought me back, straightened me, made me interrupt her abruptly and stare. For into Eustace's cottage across the green, was entering, at that very moment, no other than the sleek form of Jackman.
"Excuse me," I cried, and made a dash for the door. But before I reached it I had realized my impotence, and it flashed into my mind also that the window was still the best observatory. I went back; my face alight with excitement.
"My man has just gone in there," I said.
Miss Forrest started. "Your man! Is he trustworthy? Have you had him long?" she asked.
"I don't know anything about him," I answered. "He was Sir Gilbert's legacy to me. He has always seemed the pink of decency."
Over her clear face a cloud passed slowly, and she said nothing; her eyes dropped away from me. When she did speak it was in another voice.
"What will you do?"
It sounded as if she took no longer any interest in the matter, and I was disappointed.
"If I may, I will stay here," I said.
"Certainly," said she in the same voice. "If you want books there are some old Punches there."
She left the room at once, and I was too engrossed by the discovery of Jackman's perfidy even to wonder at the change in her.
Viewed in the light of this remarkable discovery, much that had been previously unintelligible was now easy to understand. Jackman was in league with the gang; and, now that I recalled it, it was plain that he had persistently put me off investigation. I remembered the adventures in the gallery the first night, and I recalled how my candle had gone out unexpectedly when I met Jackman. Again! A gust of wind had seemed to come from behind me when I was descending the stairs and had left me a second time in darkness. Jackman had been behind me; and I had wondered at the time at the violence of the wind on that gentle May night. Jackman, too, had offered on his own initiative to explore the orchard on the previous night, an unlikely proceeding for so mild a man, but one perfectly intelligible on the supposition that he was in league with the marauders. I became indignant as I reflected, and I watched the house across the green with jealous eyes. It was a quarter of an hour before any one appeared at the door, and then it was Jackman who let himself out and walked across the green and up the lane that climbs to the Castle. Within two minutes of his disappearance the door again opened and Eustace issued forth. I jumped up. My watch had brought me so far an astounding revelation. I was resolved to continue the trail to the bitter end.
Eustace left the house and proceeded to the inn. Shortly afterwards I saw a horse being harnessed in the yard, and I guessed that it was for him. Leaving my window now with a tumult in my heart, I departed from Mrs. Lane's without seeking to take leave of any one and crossed to the "Feathers." By this time my guess had been justified, and Eustace, a cigar between his teeth, was seated in the dog-cart, looking the very model of a coachman. As he drove off I entered the yard and made my own request.
I will admit that my turnout was by no means so smart as his, as all I could obtain was a little Devon cart. But the pony was vigorous and willing, and rattled along the road at a very fair speed. Eustace had taken the road to Arncombe, the little town which is the station for our neighborhood, and I followed after. I sighted him on the outskirts of Arncombe, in the dusk, and saw him draw up at an inn. I handed my cart and pony into the care of a boy, and took up the chase on foot.
Eustace, with his long, leisurely stride, strolled towards the station, but did not enter. He passed on to a shop near by, and went in, while I waited in the falling light. A few minutes afterwards he emerged with some letters in his hand, tearing open the envelope of one carelessly. It was clear, then, that he called for letters surreptitiously; and now his character darkened deeper than ever.
I walked in his wake towards the station, secure in the gloom, as I thought, against his observation. Just before we got to it I heard the groaning of the down train as the brakes checked it into the platform; and when Eustace came abreast of the doorway it shot out its passengers—a man and a woman first, a party of tourists happy together, and then two men a little behind them, the one with a bag in his hand. Suddenly I observed Eustace wheel away, and slouch off in his own tracks, a manœuvre that brought him back towards me. His act was entirely unexpected and caught me by surprise. He went by me quite close, but without paying me any heed, and as if in considerable haste. As for me, I walked on—I could do nothing else—and I passed quite close to the two men at whom, as it appeared to me, Eustace had shied. One was the little fair man who had previously been staying in the "Feathers," and the other, with the bag, was a stranger. They were eagerly talking together, and the stranger was throwing a hand out in the direction from which I had come.
This enhanced the mystery. I could have sworn Eustace had striven to hide himself from the arrivals, and I now was vexed at having lost sight of him. The two men had apparently seen him, and he was under discussion by them. What did it mean? I loitered down the road till I came to the place where I had left my pony-cart. The boy was waiting patiently, but I left him there, for I had a sudden notion to look in at the inn where Eustace had drawn up. There was a bustle in the little stable yard, and as I entered a man rusted past me round the nose of a horse which was being harnessed.
"Look out, old man," called Eustace to me out of the deepening gloom. "I'm off smart."
I had just time to step aside, and the horse, with his head drawn back, ramped by me and over the threshold of the gates into the street. Next moment Eustace was slipping briskly down the road on the return to Southington. I ran back to my pony, and, throwing a coin to the boy, jumped into the trap. I was not more than a few hundred yards in the rear of my quarry, but I had lost sight of him. I could hear the pounding of his horse's hoofs on the road, but the dark had swallowed him up. My little pony struggled gamely to keep up, but slowly fell back and soon I heard no sound of him. When at last I reached Southington he had disappeared.
I was now in this predicament. Eustace had fled from the men at the station for some unknown reason. Should I try to get on his track again, or should I await the arrival of the others, and confine my attention to them? I had a feeling that perhaps the latter course would be the wiser. If they were after Eustace I should thus kill two birds with one stone. As yet I had not stopped to wonder why he was anxious to escape their notice. I had been too hot upon the scent so far. But now I lost it at the "Feathers." He had alighted in the yard, where his horse was still smoking, and had left a few minutes before my arrival. Had he gone to his rooms? I dared not follow at the present development of affairs, and the window at Mrs. Lane's would no longer serve me as a watch-tower. I might, of course, hang about the green on the chance of seeing Eustace, but I did not like the idea with its "long odds " against, me. Should I wait at the inn?
That was what I did in the end. I want to set down the facts of this evening in exact sequence, and I hope they will not appear confused, which, I will confess, they were to me at the time. I waited at the "Feathers until I heard the sound of a trap without. Then I went out. It was quite dark by now, and I could do no more than determine the figures of three men in a victoria, the driver on the box, and two others at the back. These latter got out, and I knew my conjecture had not gone wrong, when I saw that one held a bag in his hand.
The two men conferred a little, put a question I did not hear to the innkeeper, and then separated.
"I 'll find him," said one; and this was the one who strode off into the night. The second man entered the inn.
I did not hesitate. It seemed to me more important to keep the former in view. He was off in search of some one, and I was off in search of him. I kept steadily in his rear at a convenient distance, dogging him as I had dogged Eustace, and when the rays of a lamp from a cottage window fell on him, and revealed the sunken square head of the little fair man, I was not surprised. He went up the lane towards the Castle.
Now the lane, as I have said, was a characteristic Devon lane, running in parts like a deep gutter, over-closed with banks and trees above. And in our passage through this tract I lost him. He vanished absolutely, and no sign of him came back to me, to ear or eye. I hunted the lane, and found sloping paths that ran up the wall into the fields above, and as soon as I was brought up against this my heart sank. If he had struck up to the higher ground he had certainly evaded me. And there was the copse a little farther. He might be hiding anywhere there. Again, he might have taken a short and private cut across the fields to the Castle precincts. As this dawned on me I became anxious to get home; and, abandoning all attempts to get on the trail, I hurried along the lane excitedly.
I reached the Castle to find my supper on the table, and Jackman with a suggestion of silent reproach on his face. And not until then did his newly revealed perfidy recur to me. I looked at him and wondered that so specious a man could be such a hypocrite. His mask of a face betrayed nothing, save concern for a hot dish which his wife had prepared and which had been kept against my return. His even tones degenerated not a shade into an expression of feeling. He seemed impassive.
I was not equal just then to dealing with him. I had lost both Eustace and the fair man, and I was tired and disgusted. Only towards the end of the meal I broke silence. A couple of glasses of champagne had consoled me, and brought fresh ideas and new hopes.
"Jackman, it is possible that we may be troubled to-night by our old friends, the burglars,—perhaps I should say the ghosts," I amended ironically. "You will be on your guard."
I looked him full in the face. "Yes, sir," said he, as if I had ordered a piece of toast.
The man was a consummate hypocrite and a hardened rascal. But he was to meet his match, I thought, for once at least in artifice. He was in league with the gang and Eustace, and I knew it. Whoever came would be confident in the knowledge of a confederate within the Castle. And now the relation of the various parties began to trouble me. Was it possible that the men at the station were detectives?
I went out into the fine night and paced the lawn. The sky was clearing, and a moon was vagrant in it. Upon the shingle the sea moaned and raked. A fine wind blew out of the west. I thought of Perdita under the stars, and came to with the blackness of a shrubbery on the lawn threatening me. What lurked in that formidable stack of gloom? I turned away and went back to the house. The situation was getting on my nerves. I read for a time in the down-stairs room, and then moved into the morning-room which opened on the lawn. There was no light here, and I threw back the French windows and let the night breeze wander in. Without all was still and silent, except for the wind in the trees, and the water on the shore.
Suddenly this silence was broken by noises, by a sort of indistinct and distant clamor. I listened intently, and it seemed to me I could hear voices and the sound of feet as of some one running. And then the sounds faded. I pulled at the bell for Jackman on a quick impulse, but no one answered. I pealed on it continuously and could hear it jingling way in the kitchen quarters. Mrs. Jackman appeared now with a scared face, white like death.
"Did you ring, sir?" she asked.
It was the silliest of questions.
"Where's Jackman?" I asked abruptly.
"I—I 'll see, sir," she stammered in confusion. "I—he's—p'raps he's—I 'll see, sir."
I knew now what I had wanted to learn, and I turned my back on her; for the sounds were again audible, and now they definitely resolved themselves into voices and running feet. I stepped out into the moonlight, and as I did so a dark figure shot across the intermediate lawn and vanished into the shrubbery. I gazed. It emerged from the shrubbery, took a flying leap across a pathway, and passed from my sight round the corner of the Castle. He had sped like a wraith.
Since my discovery of Jackman's perfidy I had guessed as to the means of entrance which the burglar had found. He came by the back, and his objective was naturally the strong-room. I went in, shut the window swiftly, and, going to my drawer in the other room as fast as I could, took out a loaded revolver.
Then I seized a light and went up the stairs noiselessly to the picture-gallery. I walked the length of this with the lamp in one hand, and the weapon in the other; but no one was visible, and nothing but shadows leaped out on me from the walls and bays of the library. The door of the jewel-room was shut. I came back along the western wall, pierced with large mullions, and set with portraits, and when I had gone half-way a noise stopped me. I listened greedily, and it came as the shuffling of a mouse in the wainscot. I was passing on when it grew louder. I paused again. It seemed to spring from the lower portion of the room. I retraced my steps, and stood flashing the light into the bays of book-shelves. The noise was still audible, but not so loud, and it obviously came from behind the shelves in the wall. Acting almost on instinct I blew out the lamp, and the moonlight filed into the chamber.
There was a dull click, and the shelves shook in the corner; and then the light fell faintly on a yawning hole, and out of the hole crept a man.
I waited a moment longer, and then, stepping into the light, presented my pistol. The moon was full on my face.
"I say, stop a bit," said a voice. "Damn it, I'm Sir Gilbert Norroy."