Chapter III (1)

Long before anybody else was astir he arose and stole softly downstairs. The sunlight was stealing in at every crevice, and flashing in long streaks across the darkened rooms. The dining-room into which he looked struck chill and cheerless in the dark yellow light which came through the lowered blinds. He remembered that it had the same appearance when his father lay dead in the house; now, as then, everything seemed ghastly and unreal; the very chairs standing as their occupants had left them the night before seemed to be indulging in some dark communication of ideas.

Slowly and noiselessly he opened the hall door and passed into the fragrant air beyond. The sun was shining on the drenched grass and trees, and a slowly vanishing white mist rolled like smoke about the grounds. For a moment he stood, breathing deeply the sweet air of the morning, and then walked slowly in the direction of the stables.

The rusty creaking of a pump-handle and a spatter of water upon the red-tiled courtyard showed that somebody else was astir, and a few steps farther he beheld a brawny, sandy-haired man gasping wildly under severe self-infliction at the pump.

“Everything ready, George?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, sir,” said the man, straightening up suddenly and touching his forehead. “Bob’s just finishing the arrangements inside. It’s a lovely morning for a dip. The water in that well must be just icy.”

“Be as quick as you can,” said Benson, impatiently.

“Very good, sir,” said George, burnishing his face harshly with a very small towel which had been hanging over the top of the pump. “Hurry up, Bob.”

In answer to his summons a man appeared at the door of the stable with a coil of stout rope over his arm and a large metal candlestick in his hand.

“Just to try the air, sir,” said George, following his master’s glance, “a well gets rather foul sometimes, but if a candle can live down it, a man can.”

His master nodded, and the man, hastily pulling up the neck of his shirt and thrusting his arms into his coat, followed him as he led the way slowly to the well.

“Beg pardon, sir,” said George, drawing up to his side, “but you are not looking over and above well this morning. If you’ll let me go down I’d enjoy the bath.”

“No, no,” said Benson, peremptorily.

“You ain’t fit to go down, sir,” persisted his follower. “I’ve never seen you look so before. Now if—”

“Mind your business,” said his master curtly.

George became silent and the three walked with swinging strides through the long wet grass to the well. Bob flung the rope on the ground and at a sign from his master handed him the candlestick.

“Here’s the line for it, sir,” said Bob, fumbling in his pockets.

Benson took it from him and slowly tied it to the candlestick. Then he placed it on the edge of the well, and striking a match, lit the candle and began slowly to lower it.

“Hold hard, sir,” said George, quickly, laying his hand on his arm, “you must tilt it or the string’ll burn through.”

Even as he spoke the string parted and the candlestick fell into the water below.

Benson swore quietly.

“I’ll soon get another,” said George, starting up.

“Never mind, the well’s all right,” said Benson.

“It won’t take a moment, sir,” said the other over his shoulder.

“Are you master here, or am I?” said Benson hoarsely.

George came back slowly, a glance at his master’s face stopping the protest upon his tongue, and he stood by watching him sulkily as he sat on the well and removed his outer garments. Both men watched him curiously, as having completed his preparations he stood grim and silent with his hands by his sides.

“I wish you’d let me go, sir,” said George, plucking up courage to address him. “You ain’t fit to go, you’ve got a chill or something. I shouldn’t wonder it’s the typhoid. They’ve got it in the village bad.”

For a moment Benson looked at him angrily, then his gaze softened. “Not this time, George,” he said, quietly. He took the looped end of the rope and placed it under his arms, and sitting down threw one leg over the side of the well.

“How are you going about it, sir?” queried George, laying hold of the rope and signing to Bob to do the same.

“I’ll call out when I reach the water,” said Benson; “then pay out three yards more quickly so that I can get to the bottom.”

“Very good, sir,” answered both.

Their master threw the other leg over the coping and sat motionless. His back was turned toward the men as he sat with head bent, looking down the shaft. He sat for so long that George became uneasy.

“All right, sir?” he inquired.

“Yes,” said Benson, slowly. “If I tug at the rope, George, pull up at once. Lower away.”

The rope passed steadily through their hands until a hollow cry from the darkness below and a faint splashing warned them that he had reached the water. They gave him three yards more and stood with relaxed grasp and strained ears, waiting.

“He’s gone under,” said Bob in a low voice.

The other nodded, and moistening his huge palms took a firmer grip of the rope.

Fully a minute passed, and the men began to exchange uneasy glances. Then a sudden tremendous jerk followed by a series of feebler ones nearly tore the rope from their grasp.

“Pull!” shouted George, placing one foot on the side and hauling desperately. “Pull! pull! He’s stuck fast; he’s not coming; PULL!”

In response to their terrific exertions the rope came slowly in, inch by inch, until at length a violent splashing was heard, and at the same moment a scream of unutterable horror came echoing up the shaft.

“What a weight he is!” panted Bob. “He’s stuck fast or something. Keep still, sir; for heaven’s sake, keep still.”

For the taut rope was being jerked violently by the struggles of the weight at the end of it. Both men with grunts and sighs hauled it in foot by foot.

“All right, sir,” cried George, cheerfully.

He had one foot against the well, and was pulling manfully; the burden was nearing the top. A long pull and a strong pull, and the face of a dead man with mud in the eyes and nostrils came peering over the edge. Behind it was the ghastly face of his master; but this he saw too late, for with a great cry he let go his hold of the rope and stepped back. The suddenness overthrew his assistant, and the rope tore through his hands. There was a frightful splash.

“You fool!” stammered Bob, and ran to the well helplessly.

“Run!” cried George. “Run for another line.”

He bent over the coping and called eagerly down as his assistant sped back to the stables shouting wildly. His voice re-echoed down the shaft, but all else was silence.

CUPBOARD LOVE

In the comfortable living-room at Negget’s farm, half parlour and half kitchen, three people sat at tea in the waning light of a November afternoon. Conversation, which had been brisk, had languished somewhat, owing to Mrs. Negget glancing at frequent intervals toward the door, behind which she was convinced the servant was listening, and checking the finest periods and the most startling suggestions with a warning ’_ssh!_

“Go on, uncle,” she said, after one of these interruptions.

“I forget where I was,” said Mr. Martin Bodfish, shortly.

“Under our bed,” Mr. Negget reminded him.

“Yes, watching,” said Mrs. Negget, eagerly.

It was an odd place for an ex-policeman, especially as a small legacy added to his pension had considerably improved his social position, but Mr. Bodfish had himself suggested it in the professional hope that the person who had taken Mrs. Negget’s gold brooch might try for further loot. He had, indeed, suggested baiting the dressing-table with the farmer’s watch, an idea which Mr. Negget had promptly vetoed.

“I can’t help thinking that Mrs. Pottle knows something about it,” said Mrs. Negget, with an indignant glance at her husband.

“Mrs. Pottle,” said the farmer, rising slowly and taking a seat on the oak settle built in the fireplace, “has been away from the village for near a fortnit.”

“I didn’t say she took it,” snapped his wife. “I said I believe she knows something about it, and so I do. She’s a horrid woman. Look at the way she encouraged her girl Looey to run after that young traveller from Smithson’s. The whole fact of the matter is, it isn’t your brooch, so you don’t care.”

“I said—” began Mr. Negget.

“I know what you said,” retorted his wife, sharply, “and I wish you’d be quiet and not interrupt uncle. Here’s my uncle been in the police twenty-five years, and you won’t let him put a word in edgeways.’

“My way o’ looking at it,” said the ex-policeman, slowly, “is different to that o’ the law; my idea is, an’ always has been, that everybody is guilty until they’ve proved their innocence.”

“It’s a wonderful thing to me,” said Mr. Negget in a low voice to his pipe, “as they should come to a house with a retired policeman living in it. Looks to me like somebody that ain’t got much respect for the police.”

The ex-policeman got up from the table, and taking a seat on the settle opposite the speaker, slowly filled a long clay and took a spill from the fireplace. His pipe lit, he turned to his niece, and slowly bade her go over the account of her loss once more.

“I missed it this morning,” said Mrs. Negget, rapidly, “at ten minutes past twelve o’clock by the clock, and half-past five by my watch which wants looking to. I’d just put the batch of bread into the oven, and gone upstairs and opened the box that stands on my drawers to get a lozenge, and I missed the brooch.”

“Do you keep it in that box?” asked the ex-policeman, slowly.

“Always,” replied his niece. “I at once came down stairs and told Emma that the brooch had been stolen. I said that I named no names, and didn’t wish to think bad of anybody, and that if I found the brooch back in the box when I went up stairs again, I should forgive whoever took it.”

“And what did Emma say?” inquired Mr. Bodfish.

“Emma said a lot o’ things,” replied Mrs. Negget, angrily. “I’m sure by the lot she had to say you’d ha’ thought she was the missis and me the servant. I gave her a month’s notice at once, and she went straight up stairs and sat on her box and cried.”

“Sat on her box?” repeated the ex-constable, impressively. “Oh!”

“That’s what I thought,” said his niece, “but it wasn’t, because I got her off at last and searched it through and through. I never saw anything like her clothes in all my life. There was hardly a button or a tape on; and as for her stockings—”

“She don’t get much time,” said Mr. Negget, slowly.

“That’s right; I thought you’d speak up for her,” cried his wife, shrilly.

“Look here—” began Mr. Negget, laying his pipe on the seat by his side and rising slowly.

“Keep to the case in hand,” said the ex-constable, waving him back to his seat again. “Now, Lizzie.”

“I searched her box through and through,” said his niece, “but it wasn’t there; then I came down again and had a rare good cry all to myself.”

“That’s the best way for you to have it,” remarked Mr. Negget, feelingly.

Mrs. Negget’s uncle instinctively motioned his niece to silence, and holding his chin in his hand, scowled frightfully in the intensity of thought.

“See a cloo?” inquired Mr. Negget, affably.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, George,” said his wife, angrily; “speaking to uncle when he’s looking like that.”

Mr. Bodfish said nothing; it is doubtful whether he even heard these remarks; but he drew a huge notebook from his pocket, and after vainly trying to point his pencil by suction, took a knife from the table and hastily sharpened it.

“Was the brooch there last night?” he inquired.

“It were,” said Mr. Negget, promptly. “Lizzie made me get up just as the owd clock were striking twelve to get her a lozenge.”

“It seems pretty certain that the brooch went since then,” mused Mr. Bodfish.

“It would seem like it to a plain man,” said Mr. Negget, guardedly.

“I should like to see the box,” said Mr. Bodfish.

Mrs. Negget went up and fetched it and stood eyeing him eagerly as he raised the lid and inspected the contents. It contained only a few lozenges and some bone studs. Mr. Negget helped himself to a lozenge, and going back to his seat, breathed peppermint.

“Properly speaking, that ought not to have been touched,” said the ex-constable, regarding him with some severity.

“Eh!” said the startled farmer, putting his finger to his lips.

“Never mind,” said the other, shaking his head. “It’s too late now.”

“He doesn’t care a bit,” said Mrs. Negget, somewhat sadly. “He used to keep buttons in that box with the lozenges until one night he gave me one by mistake. Yes, you may laugh—I’m glad you can laugh.”

Mr. Negget, feeling that his mirth was certainly ill-timed, shook for some time in a noble effort to control himself, and despairing at length, went into the back place to recover. Sounds of blows indicative of Emma slapping him on the back did not add to Mrs. Negget’s serenity.

“The point is,” said the ex-constable, “could anybody have come into your room while you was asleep and taken it?”

“No,” said Mrs. Negget, decisively. “I’m a very poor sleeper, and I’d have woke at once, but if a flock of elephants was to come in the room they wouldn’t wake George. He’d sleep through anything.”

“Except her feeling under my piller for her handkerchief,” corroborated Mr. Negget, returning to the sitting-room.

Mr. Bodfish waved them to silence, and again gave way to deep thought. Three times he took up his pencil, and laying it down again, sat and drummed on the table with his fingers. Then he arose, and with bent head walked slowly round and round the room until he stumbled over a stool.

“Nobody came to the house this morning, I suppose?” he said at length, resuming his seat.

“Only Mrs. Driver,” said his niece.

“What time did she come?” inquired Mr. Bodfish.

“Here! look here!” interposed Mr. Negget. “I’ve known Mrs. Driver thirty year a’most.”

“What time did she come?” repeated the ex-constable, pitilessly.

His niece shook her head. “It might have been eleven, and again it might have been earlier,” she replied. “I was out when she came.”

“Out!” almost shouted the other.

Mrs. Negget nodded.

“She was sitting in here when I came back.”

Her uncle looked up and glanced at the door behind which a small staircase led to the room above.

“What was to prevent Mrs. Driver going up there while you were away?” he demanded.

“I shouldn’t like to think that of Mrs. Driver,” said his niece, shaking her head; “but then in these days one never knows what might happen. Never. I’ve given up thinking about it. However, when I came back, Mrs. Driver was here, sitting in that very chair you are sitting in now.”

Mr. Bodfish pursed up his lips and made another note. Then he took a spill from the fireplace, and lighting a candle, went slowly and carefully up the stairs. He found nothing on them but two caked rims of mud, and being too busy to notice Mr. Negget’s frantic signalling, called his niece’s attention to them.

“What do you think of that?” he demanded, triumphantly.

“Somebody’s been up there,” said his niece. “It isn’t Emma, because she hasn’t been outside the house all day; and it can’t be George, because he promised me faithful he’d never go up there in his dirty boots.”

Mr. Negget coughed, and approaching the stairs, gazed with the eye of a stranger at the relics as Mr. Bodfish hotly rebuked a suggestion of his niece’s to sweep them up.

“Seems to me,” said the conscience-stricken Mr. Negget, feebly, “as they’re rather large for a woman.”

“Mud cakes,” said Mr. Bodfish, with his most professional manner; “a small boot would pick up a lot this weather.”

“So it would,” said Mr. Negget, and with brazen effrontery not only met his wife’s eye without quailing, but actually glanced down at her boots.

Mr. Bodfish came back to his chair and ruminated. Then he looked up and spoke.

“It was missed this morning at ten minutes past twelve,” he said, slowly; “it was there last night. At eleven o’clock you came in and found Mrs. Driver sitting in that chair.”

“No, the one you’re in,” interrupted his niece.

“It don’t signify,” said her uncle. “Nobody else has been near the place, and Emma’s box has been searched.

“Thoroughly searched,” testified Mrs. Negget.

“Now the point is, what did Mrs. Driver come for this morning?” resumed the ex-constable. “Did she come—”

He broke off and eyed with dignified surprise a fine piece of wireless telegraphy between husband and wife. It appeared that Mr. Negget sent off a humorous message with his left eye, the right being for some reason closed, to which Mrs. Negget replied with a series of frowns and staccato shakes of the head, which her husband found easily translatable. Under the austere stare of Mr. Bodfish their faces at once regained their wonted calm, and the ex-constable in a somewhat offended manner resumed his inquiries.

“Mrs. Driver has been here a good bit lately,” he remarked, slowly.

Mr. Negget’s eyes watered, and his mouth worked piteously.

“If you can’t behave yourself, George,” began his wife, fiercely.

“What is the matter?” demanded Mr. Bodfish. “I’m not aware that I’ve said anything to be laughed at.”

“No more you have, uncle,” retorted his niece; “only George is such a stupid. He’s got an idea in his silly head that Mrs. Driver—But it’s all nonsense, of course.”

“I’ve merely got a bit of an idea that it’s a wedding-ring, not a brooch, Mrs. Driver is after,” said the farmer to the perplexed constable.

Mr. Bodfish looked from one to the other. “But you always keep yours on, Lizzie, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” replied his niece, hurriedly; “but George has always got such strange ideas. Don’t take no notice of him.”

Her uncle sat back in his chair, his face still wrinkled perplexedly; then the wrinkles vanished suddenly, chased away by a huge glow, and he rose wrathfully and towered over the match-making Mr. Negget. “How dare you?” he gasped.

Mr. Negget made no reply, but in a cowardly fashion jerked his thumb toward his wife.

“Oh! George! How can you say so?” said the latter.

“I should never ha’ thought of it by myself,” said the farmer; “but I think they’d make a very nice couple, and I’m sure Mrs. Driver thinks so.”

The ex-constable sat down in wrathful confusion, and taking up his notebook again, watched over the top of it the silent charges and countercharges of his niece and her husband.

“If I put my finger on the culprit,” he asked at length, turning to his niece, “what do you wish done to her?”

Mrs. Negget regarded him with an expression which contained all the Christian virtues rolled into one.

“Nothing,” she said, softly. “I only want my brooch back.”

The ex-constable shook his head at this leniency.

“Well, do as you please,” he said, slowly. “In the first place, I want you to ask Mrs. Driver here to tea to-morrow—oh, I don’t mind Negget’s ridiculous ideas—pity he hasn’t got something better to think of; if she’s guilty, I’ll soon find it out. I’ll play with her like a cat with a mouse. I’ll make her convict herself.”

“Look here!” said Mr. Negget, with sudden vigour. “I won’t have it. I won’t have no woman asked here to tea to be got at like that. There’s only my friends comes here to tea, and if any friend stole anything o’ mine, I’d be one o’ the first to hush it up.”

“If they were all like you, George,” said his wife, angrily, “where would the law be?”

“Or the police?” demanded Mr. Bodfish, staring at him.

“I won’t have it!” repeated the farmer, loudly. “I’m the law here, and I’m the police here. That little tiny bit o’ dirt was off my boots, I dare say. I don’t care if it was.”

“Very good,” said Mr. Bodfish, turning to his indignant niece; “if he likes to look at it that way, there’s nothing more to be said. I only wanted to get your brooch back for you, that’s all; but if he’s against it—”

“I’m against your asking Mrs. Driver here to my house to be got at,” said the farmer.

“O’ course if you can find out who took the brooch, and get it back again anyway, that’s another matter.”

Mr. Bodfish leaned over the table toward his niece.

“If I get an opportunity, I’ll search her cottage,” he said, in a low voice. “Strictly speaking, it ain’t quite a legal thing to do, o course, but many o’ the finest pieces of detective work have been done by breaking the law. If she’s a kleptomaniac, it’s very likely lying about somewhere in the house.”

He eyed Mr. Negget closely, as though half expecting another outburst, but none being forthcoming, sat back in his chair again and smoked in silence, while Mrs. Negget, with a carpet-brush which almost spoke, swept the pieces of dried mud from the stairs.

Mr. Negget was the last to go to bed that night, and finishing his pipe over the dying fire, sat for some time in deep thought. He had from the first raised objections to the presence of Mr. Bodfish at the farm, but family affection, coupled with an idea of testamentary benefits, had so wrought with his wife that he had allowed her to have her own way. Now he half fancied that he saw a chance of getting rid of him. If he could only enable the widow to catch him searching her house, it was highly probable that the ex-constable would find the village somewhat too hot to hold him. He gave his right leg a congratulatory slap as he thought of it, and knocking the ashes from his pipe, went slowly up to bed.

He was so amiable next morning that Mr. Bodfish, who was trying to explain to Mrs. Negget the difference between theft and kleptomania, spoke before him freely. The ex-constable defined kleptomania as a sort of amiable weakness found chiefly among the upper circles, and cited the case of a lady of title whose love of diamonds, combined with great hospitality, was a source of much embarrassment to her guests.

For the whole of that day Mr. Bodfish hung about in the neighbourhood of the widow’s cottage, but in vain, and it would be hard to say whether he or Mr. Negget, who had been discreetly shadowing him, felt the disappointment most. On the day following, however, the ex-constable from a distant hedge saw a friend of the widow’s enter the cottage, and a little later both ladies emerged and walked up the road.

He watched them turn the corner, and then, with a cautious glance round, which failed, however, to discover Mr. Negget, the ex-constable strolled casually in the direction of the cottage, and approaching it from the rear, turned the handle of the door and slipped in.

He searched the parlour hastily, and then, after a glance from the window, ventured up stairs. And he was in the thick of his self-imposed task when his graceless nephew by marriage, who had met Mrs. Driver and referred pathetically to a raging thirst which he had hoped to have quenched with some of her home-brewed, brought the ladies hastily back again.

“I’ll go round the back way,” said the wily Negget as they approached the cottage. “I just want to have a look at that pig of yours.”

He reached the back door at the same time as Mr. Bodfish, and placing his legs apart, held it firmly against the frantic efforts of the exconstable. The struggle ceased suddenly, and the door opened easily just as Mrs. Driver and her friend appeared in the front room, and the farmer, with a keen glance at the door of the larder which had just closed, took a chair while his hostess drew a glass of beer from the barrel in the kitchen.

Mr. Negget drank gratefully and praised the brew. From beer the conversation turned naturally to the police, and from the police to the listening Mr. Bodfish, who was economizing space by sitting on the bread-pan, and trembling with agitation.

“He’s a lonely man,” said Negget, shaking his head and glancing from the corner of his eye at the door of the larder. In his wildest dreams he had not imagined so choice a position, and he resolved to give full play to an idea which suddenly occurred to him.

“I dare say,” said Mrs. Driver, carelessly, conscious that her friend was watching her.

“And the heart of a little child,” said Negget; “you wouldn’t believe how simple he is.”

Mrs. Clowes said that it did him credit, but, speaking for herself, she hadn’t noticed it.

“He was talking about you night before last,” said Negget, turning to his hostess; “not that that’s anything fresh. He always is talking about you nowadays.”

The widow coughed confusedly and told him not to be foolish.

“Ask my wife,” said the farmer, impressively; “they were talking about you for hours. He’s a very shy man is my wife’s uncle, but you should see his face change when your name’s mentioned.”

As a matter of fact, Mr. Bodfish’s face was at that very moment taking on a deeper shade of crimson.

“Everything you do seems to interest him,” continued the farmer, disregarding Mrs. Driver’s manifest distress; “he was asking Lizzie about your calling on Monday; how long you stayed, and where you sat; and after she’d told him, I’m blest if he didn’t go and sit in the same chair!”

This romantic setting to a perfectly casual action on the part of Mr. Bodfish affected the widow visibly, but its effect on the ex-constable nearly upset the bread-pan.

“But here,” continued Mr. Negget, with another glance at the larder, “he might go on like that for years. He’s a wunnerful shy man—big, and gentle, and shy. He wanted Lizzie to ask you to tea yesterday.”

“Now, Mr. Negget,” said the blushing widow. “Do be quiet.”

“Fact,” replied the farmer; “solemn fact, I assure you. And he asked her whether you were fond of jewellery.”

“I met him twice in the road near here yesterday,” said Mrs. Clowes, suddenly. “Perhaps he was waiting for you to come out.”

“I dare say,” replied the farmer. “I shouldn’t wonder but what he’s hanging about somewhere near now, unable to tear himself away.”

Mr. Bodfish wrung his hands, and his thoughts reverted instinctively to instances in his memory in which charges of murder had been altered by the direction of a sensible judge to manslaughter. He held his breath for the next words.

Mr. Negget drank a little more ale and looked at Mrs. Driver.

“I wonder whether you’ve got a morsel of bread and cheese?” he said, slowly. “I’ve come over that hungry—”

The widow and Mr. Bodfish rose simultaneously. It required not the brain of a trained detective to know that the cheese was in the larder. The unconscious Mrs. Driver opened the door, and then with a wild scream fell back before the emerging form of Mr. Bodfish into the arms of Mrs. Clowes. The glass of Mr. Negget smashed on the floor, and the farmer himself, with every appearance of astonishment, stared at the apparition open-mouthed.

“Mr.—Bodfish!” he said at length, slowly.

Mr. Bodfish, incapable of speech, glared at him ferociously.

“Leave him alone,” said Mrs. Clowes, who was ministering to her friend. “Can’t you see the man’s upset at frightening her? She’s coming round, Mr. Bodfish; don’t be alarmed.”

“Very good,” said the farmer, who found his injured relative’s gaze somewhat trying. “I’ll go, and leave him to explain to Mrs. Driver why he was hidden in her larder. It don’t seem a proper thing to me.”

“Why, you silly man,” said Mrs. Clowes, gleefully, as she paused at the door, “that don’t want any explanation. Now, Mr. Bodfish, we’re giving you your chance. Mind you make the most of it, and don’t be too shy.”

She walked excitedly up the road with the farmer, and bidding him good-bye at the corner, went off hastily to spread the news. Mr. Negget walked home soberly, and hardly staying long enough to listen to his wife’s account of the finding of the brooch between the chest of drawers and the wall, went off to spend the evening with a friend, and ended by making a night of it.

IN THE LIBRARY

The fire had burnt low in the library, for the night was wet and warm. It was now little more than a grey shell, and looked desolate. Trayton Burleigh, still hot, rose from his armchair, and turning out one of the gas-jets, took a cigar from a box on a side-table and resumed his seat again.

The apartment, which was on the third floor at the back of the house, was a combination of library, study, and smoke-room, and was the daily despair of the old housekeeper who, with the assistance of one servant, managed the house. It was a bachelor establishment, and had been left to Trayton Burleigh and James Fletcher by a distant connection of both men some ten years before.

Trayton Burleigh sat back in his chair watching the smoke of his cigar through half-closed eyes. Occasionally he opened them a little wider and glanced round the comfortable, well-furnished room, or stared with a cold gleam of hatred at Fletcher as he sat sucking stolidly at his brier pipe. It was a comfortable room and a valuable house, half of which belonged to Trayton Burleigh; and yet he was to leave it in the morning and become a rogue and a wanderer over the face of the earth. James Fletcher had said so. James Fletcher, with the pipe still between his teeth and speaking from one corner of his mouth only, had pronounced his sentence.

“It hasn’t occurred to you, I suppose,” said Burleigh, speaking suddenly, “that I might refuse your terms.”

“No,” said Fletcher, simply.

Burleigh took a great mouthful of smoke and let it roll slowly out.

“I am to go out and leave you in possession?” he continued. “You will stay here sole proprietor of the house; you will stay at the office sole owner and representative of the firm? You are a good hand at a deal, James Fletcher.”

“I am an honest man,” said Fletcher, “and to raise sufficient money to make your defalcations good will not by any means leave me the gainer, as you very well know.”

“There is no necessity to borrow,” began Burleigh, eagerly. “We can pay the interest easily, and in course of time make the principal good without a soul being the wiser.”

“That you suggested before,” said Fletcher, “and my answer is the same. I will be no man’s confederate in dishonesty; I will raise every penny at all costs, and save the name of the firm—and yours with it—but I will never have you darken the office again, or sit in this house after to-night.”

“_You_ won’t,” cried Burleigh, starting up in a frenzy of rage.

“_I_ won’t,” said Fletcher. “You can choose the alternative: disgrace and penal servitude. Don’t stand over me; you won’t frighten me, I can assure you. Sit down.”

“You have arranged so many things in your kindness,” said Burleigh, slowly, resuming his seat again, “have you arranged how I am to live?”

“You have two strong hands, and health,” replied Fletcher. “I will give you the two hundred pounds I mentioned, and after that you must look out for yourself. You can take it now.”

He took a leather case from his breast pocket, and drew out a roll of notes. Burleigh, watching him calmly, stretched out his hand and took them from the table. Then he gave way to a sudden access of rage, and crumpling them in his hand, threw them into a corner of the room. Fletcher smoked on.

“Mrs. Marl is out?” said Burleigh, suddenly.

Fletcher nodded.

“She will be away the night,” he said, slowly; “and Jane too; they have gone together somewhere, but they will be back at half-past eight in the morning.”

“You are going to let me have one more breakfast in the old place, then,” said Burleigh. “Half-past eight, half-past—-”

He rose from his chair again. This time Fletcher took his pipe from his mouth and watched him closely. Burleigh stooped, and picking up the notes, placed them in his pocket.

“If I am to be turned adrift, it shall not be to leave you here,” he said, in a thick voice.

He crossed over and shut the door; as he turned back Fletcher rose from his chair and stood confronting him. Burleigh put his hand to the wall, and drawing a small Japanese sword from its sheath of carved ivory, stepped slowly toward him.

“I give you one chance, Fletcher,” he said, grimly. “You are a man of your word. Hush this up and let things be as they were before, and you are safe.”

“Put that down,” said Fletcher, sharply.

“By —, I mean what I say!” cried the other.

“I mean what I said!” answered Fletcher.

He looked round at the last moment for a weapon, then he turned suddenly at a sharp sudden pain, and saw Burleigh’s clenched fist nearly touching his breast-bone. The hand came away from his breast again, and something with it. It went a long way off. Trayton Burleigh suddenly went to a great distance and the room darkened. It got quite dark, and Fletcher, with an attempt to raise his hands, let them fall to his side instead, and fell in a heap to the floor.

He was so still that Burleigh could hardly realize that it was all over, and stood stupidly waiting for him to rise again. Then he took out his handkerchief as though to wipe the sword, and thinking better of it, put it back into his pocket again, and threw the weapon on to the floor.

The body of Fletcher lay where it had fallen, the white face turned up to the gas. In life he had been a commonplace-looking man, not to say vulgar; now Burleigh, with a feeling of nausea, drew back toward the door, until the body was hidden by the table, and relieved from the sight, he could think more clearly. He looked down carefully and examined his clothes and his boots. Then he crossed the room again, and with his face averted, turned out the gas. Something seemed to stir in the darkness, and with a faint cry he blundered toward the door before he had realized that it was the clock. It struck twelve.

He stood at the head of the stairs trying to recover himself; trying to think. The gas on the landing below, the stairs and the furniture, all looked so prosaic and familiar that he could not realize what had occurred. He walked slowly down and turned the light out. The darkness of the upper part of the house was now almost appalling, and in a sudden panic he ran down stairs into the lighted hall, and snatching a hat from the stand, went to the door and walked down to the gate.

Except for one window the neighbouring houses were in darkness, and the lamps shone upon a silent street. There was a little rain in the air, and the muddy road was full of pebbles. He stood at the gate trying to screw up his courage to enter the house again. Then he noticed a figure coming slowly up the road and keeping close to the palings.

The full realization of what he had done broke in upon him when he found himself turning to fly from the approach of the constable. The wet cape glistening in the lamplight, the slow, heavy step, made him tremble. Suppose the thing upstairs was not quite dead and should cry out? Suppose the constable should think it strange for him to be standing there and follow him in? He assumed a careless attitude, which did not feel careless, and as the man passed bade him good-night, and made a remark as to the weather.

Ere the sound of the other’s footsteps had gone quite out of hearing, he turned and entered the house again before the sense of companionship should have quite departed. The first flight of stairs was lighted by the gas in the hall, and he went up slowly. Then he struck a match and went up steadily, past the library door, and with firm fingers turned on the gas in his bedroom and lit it. He opened the window a little way, and sitting down on his bed, tried to think.

He had got eight hours. Eight hours and two hundred pounds in small notes. He opened his safe and took out all the loose cash it contained, and walking about the room, gathered up and placed in his pockets such articles of jewellery as he possessed.

The first horror had now to some extent passed, and was succeeded by the fear of death.

With this fear on him he sat down again and tried to think out the first moves in that game of skill of which his life was the stake. He had often read of people of hasty temper, evading the police for a time, and eventually falling into their hands for lack of the most elementary common sense. He had heard it said that they always made some stupid blunder, left behind them some damning clue. He took his revolver from a drawer and saw that it was loaded. If the worst came to the worst, he would die quickly.

Eight hours’ start; two hundred odd pounds. He would take lodgings at first in some populous district, and let the hair on his face grow. When the hue-and-cry had ceased, he would go abroad and start life again. He would go out of a night and post letters to himself, or better still, postcards, which his landlady would read. Postcards from cheery friends, from a sister, from a brother. During the day he would stay in and write, as became a man who described himself as a journalist.

Or suppose he went to the sea? Who would look for him in flannels, bathing and boating with ordinary happy mortals? He sat and pondered. One might mean life, and the other death. Which?

His face burned as he thought of the responsibility of the choice. So many people went to the sea at that time of year that he would surely pass unnoticed. But at the sea one might meet acquaintances. He got up and nervously paced the room again. It was not so simple, now that it meant so much, as he had thought.

The sharp little clock on the mantel-piece rang out “one,” followed immediately by the deeper note of that in the library. He thought of the clock, it seemed the only live thing in that room, and shuddered. He wondered whether the thing lying by the far side of the table heard it. He wondered—-

He started and held his breath with fear. Somewhere down stairs a board creaked loudly, then another. He went to the door, and opening it a little way, but without looking out, listened. The house was so still that he could hear the ticking of the old clock in the kitchen below. He opened the door a little wider and peeped out. As he did so there was a sudden sharp outcry on the stairs, and he drew back into the room and stood trembling before he had quite realized that the noise had been made by the cat. The cry was unmistakable; but what had disturbed it?

There was silence again, and he drew near the door once more. He became certain that something was moving stealthily on the stairs. He heard the boards creak again, and once the rails of the balustrade rattled. The silence and suspense were frightful. Suppose that the something which had been Fletcher waited for him in the darkness outside?

He fought his fears down, and opening the door, determined to see what was beyond. The light from his room streamed out on to the landing, and he peered about fearfully. Was it fancy, or did the door of Fletcher’s room opposite close as he looked? Was it fancy, or did the handle of the door really turn?

In perfect silence, and watching the door as he moved, to see that nothing came out and followed him, he proceeded slowly down the dark stairs. Then his jaw fell, and he turned sick and faint again. The library door, which he distinctly remembered closing, and which, moreover, he had seen was closed when he went up stairs to his room, now stood open some four or five inches. He fancied that there was a rustling inside, but his brain refused to be certain. Then plainly and unmistakably he heard a chair pushed against the wall.

He crept to the door, hoping to pass it before the thing inside became aware of his presence. Something crept stealthily about the room. With a sudden impulse he caught the handle of the door, and, closing it violently, turned the key in the lock, and ran madly down the stairs.

A fearful cry sounded from the room, and a heavy hand beat upon the panels of the door. The house rang with the blows, but above them sounded the loud hoarse cries of human fear. Burleigh, half-way down to the hall, stopped with his hand on the balustrade and listened. The beating ceased, and a man’s voice cried out loudly for God’s sake to let him out.

At once Burleigh saw what had happened and what it might mean for him. He had left the hall door open after his visit to the front, and some wandering bird of the night had entered the house. No need for him to go now. No need to hide either from the hangman’s rope or the felon’s cell. The fool above had saved him. He turned and ran up stairs again just as the prisoner in his furious efforts to escape wrenched the handle from the door.

“Who’s there?” he cried, loudly.

“Let me out!” cried a frantic voice. “For God’s sake, open the door! There’s something here.”

“Stay where you are!” shouted Burleigh, sternly. “Stay where you are! If you come out, I’ll shoot you like a dog!”

The only response was a smashing blow on the lock of the door. Burleigh raised his pistol, and aiming at the height of a man’s chest, fired through the panel.

The report and the crashing of the wood made one noise, succeeded by an unearthly stillness, then the noise of a window hastily opened. Burleigh fled hastily down the stairs, and flinging wide the hall door, shouted loudly for assistance.

It happened that a sergeant and the constable on the beat had just met in the road. They came toward the house at a run. Burleigh, with incoherent explanations, ran up stairs before them, and halted outside the library door. The prisoner was still inside, still trying to demolish the lock of the sturdy oaken door. Burleigh tried to turn the key, but the lock was too damaged to admit of its moving. The sergeant drew back, and, shoulder foremost, hurled himself at the door and burst it open.

He stumbled into the room, followed by the constable, and two shafts of light from the lanterns at their belts danced round the room. A man lurking behind the door made a dash for it, and the next instant the three men were locked together.

Burleigh, standing in the doorway, looked on coldly, reserving himself for the scene which was to follow. Except for the stumbling of the men and the sharp catch of the prisoner’s breath, there was no noise. A helmet fell off and bounced and rolled along the floor. The men fell; there was a sobbing snarl and a sharp click. A tall figure rose from the floor; the other, on his knees, still held the man down. The standing figure felt in his pocket, and, striking a match, lit the gas.

The light fell on the flushed face and fair beard of the sergeant. He was bare-headed, and his hair dishevelled. Burleigh entered the room and gazed eagerly at the half-insensible man on the floor-a short, thick-set fellow with a white, dirty face and a black moustache. His lip was cut and bled down his neck. Burleigh glanced furtively at the table. The cloth had come off in the struggle, and was now in the place where he had left Fletcher.

“Hot work, sir,” said the sergeant, with a smile. “It’s fortunate we were handy.”

The prisoner raised a heavy head and looked up with unmistakable terror in his eyes.

“All right, sir,” he said, trembling, as the constable increased the pressure of his knee. “I ’ain’t been in the house ten minutes altogether. By —, I’ve not.”

The sergeant regarded him curiously.

“It don’t signify,” he said, slowly; “ten minutes or ten seconds won’t make any difference.”

The man shook and began to whimper.

“It was ’ere when I come,” he said, eagerly; “take that down, sir. I’ve only just come, and it was ’ere when I come. I tried to get away then, but I was locked in.”

“What was?” demanded the sergeant.

“_That_,” he said, desperately.

The sergeant, following the direction of the terror-stricken black eyes, stooped by the table. Then, with a sharp exclamation, he dragged away the cloth. Burleigh, with a sharp cry of horror, reeled back against the wall.

“All right, sir,” said the sergeant, catching him; “all right. Turn your head away.”

He pushed him into a chair, and crossing the room, poured out a glass of whiskey and brought it to him. The glass rattled against his teeth, but he drank it greedily, and then groaned faintly. The sergeant waited patiently. There was no hurry.

“Who is it, sir?” he asked at length.

“My friend—Fletcher,” said Burleigh, with an effort. “We lived together.” He turned to the prisoner.

“You damned villain!”

“He was dead when I come in the room, gentlemen,” said the prisoner, strenuously. “He was on the floor dead, and when I see ’im, I tried to get out. S’ ’elp me he was. You heard me call out, sir. I shouldn’t ha’ called out if I’d killed him.”

“All right,” said the sergeant, gruffly; “you’d better hold your tongue, you know.”

“You keep quiet,” urged the constable.

The sergeant knelt down and raised the dead man’s head.

“I ’ad nothing to do with it,” repeated the man on the floor. “I ’ad nothing to do with it. I never thought of such a thing. I’ve only been in the place ten minutes; put that down, sir.”

The sergeant groped with his left hand, and picking up the Japanese sword, held it at him.

“I’ve never seen it before,” said the prisoner, struggling.

“It used to hang on the wall,” said Burleigh. “He must have snatched it down. It was on the wall when I left Fletcher a little while ago.”

“How long?” inquired the sergeant.

“Perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour,” was the reply. “I went to my bedroom.”

The man on the floor twisted his head and regarded him narrowly.

“You done it!” he cried, fiercely. “You done it, and you want me to swing for it.”

“That’ll do,” said the indignant constable.

The sergeant let his burden gently to the floor again.

“You hold your tongue, you devil!” he said, menacingly.

He crossed to the table and poured a little spirit into a glass and took it in his hand. Then he put it down again and crossed to Burleigh.

“Feeling better, sir?” he asked.

The other nodded faintly.

“You won’t want this thing any more,” said the sergeant.

He pointed to the pistol which the other still held, and taking it from him gently, put it into his pocket.

“You’ve hurt your wrist, sir,” he said, anxiously.

Burleigh raised one hand sharply, and then the other.

“This one, I think,” said the sergeant. “I saw it just now.”

He took the other’s wrists in his hand, and suddenly holding them in the grip of a vice, whipped out something from his pocket—something hard and cold, which snapped suddenly on Burleigh’s wrists, and held them fast.

“That’s right,” said the sergeant; “keep quiet.”

The constable turned round in amaze; Burleigh sprang toward him furiously.

“Take these things off!” he choked. “Have you gone mad? Take them off!”

“All in good time,” said the sergeant.

“Take them off!” cried Burleigh again.

For answer the sergeant took him in a powerful grip, and staring steadily at his white face and gleaming eyes, forced him to the other end of the room and pushed him into a chair.

“Collins,” he said, sharply.

“Sir?” said the astonished subordinate.

“Run to the doctor at the corner hard as you can run!” said the other. “_This man is not dead!_”

As the man left the room the sergeant took up the glass of spirits he had poured out, and kneeling down by Fletcher again, raised his head and tried to pour a little down his throat. Burleigh, sitting in his corner, watched like one in a trance. He saw the constable return with the breathless surgeon, saw the three men bending over Fletcher, and then saw the eyes of the dying man open and the lips of the dying man move. He was conscious that the sergeant made some notes in a pocket-book, and that all three men eyed him closely. The sergeant stepped toward him and placed his hand on his shoulder, and obedient to the touch, he arose and went with him out into the night.

CAPTAIN ROGERS

A man came slowly over the old stone bridge, and averting his gaze from the dark river with its silent craft, looked with some satisfaction toward the feeble lights of the small town on the other side. He walked with the painful, forced step of one who has already trudged far. His worsted hose, where they were not darned, were in holes, and his coat and knee-breeches were rusty with much wear, but he straightened himself as he reached the end of the bridge and stepped out bravely to the taverns which stood in a row facing the quay.

He passed the “Queen Anne”—a mere beershop—without pausing, and after a glance apiece at the “Royal George” and the “Trusty Anchor,” kept on his way to where the “Golden Key” hung out a gilded emblem. It was the best house in Riverstone, and patronized by the gentry, but he adjusted his faded coat, and with a swaggering air entered and walked boldly into the coffee-room.

The room was empty, but a bright fire afforded a pleasant change to the chill October air outside. He drew up a chair, and placing his feet on the fender, exposed his tattered soles to the blaze, as a waiter who had just seen him enter the room came and stood aggressively inside the door.

“Brandy and water,” said the stranger; “hot.”

“The coffee-room is for gentlemen staying in the house,” said the waiter.

The stranger took his feet from the fender, and rising slowly, walked toward him. He was a short man and thin, but there was something so menacing in his attitude, and something so fearsome in his stony brown eyes, that the other, despite his disgust for ill-dressed people, moved back uneasily.

“Brandy and water, hot,” repeated the stranger; “and plenty of it. D’ye hear?”

The man turned slowly to depart.

“Stop!” said the other, imperiously. “What’s the name of the landlord here?”

“Mullet,” said the fellow, sulkily.

“Send him to me,” said the other, resuming his seat; “and hark you, my friend, more civility, or ’twill be the worse for you.”

He stirred the log on the fire with his foot until a shower of sparks whirled up the chimney. The door opened, and the landlord, with the waiter behind him, entered the room, but he still gazed placidly at the glowing embers.

“What do you want?” demanded the landlord, in a deep voice.

The stranger turned a little weazened yellow face and grinned at him familiarly.

“Send that fat rascal of yours away,” he said, slowly.

The landlord started at his voice and eyed him closely; then he signed to the man to withdraw, and closing the door behind him, stood silently watching his visitor.

“You didn’t expect to see me, Rogers,” said the latter.