Round the Fire Stories (38 page)

“I will not go upstairs,” said I. “I have all I want here.”

She looked her contempt at me, and there never was a face which could look it plainer.

“Very good. You can take these medals. I should be glad if you would begin at this end. I suppose they will all be the same value when melted down, but these are the ones which are the rarest, and, therefore, the most precious to him. It is not necessary to break the locks. If you press that brass knob you will find that there is a secret spring. So! Take that small one first—it is the very apple of his eye.”

She had opened one of the cases, and the beautiful things all lay exposed before me. I had my hand upon the one which she had pointed out, when suddenly a change came over her face, and she held up one finger as a warning. “Hist!” she whispered. “What is that?”

Far away in the silence of the house we heard a low, dragging, shuffling sound, and the distant tread of feet. She closed and fastened the case in an instant.

“It's my husband!” she whispered. “All right. Don't be alarmed. I'll arrange it. Here! Quick, behind the tapestry!”

She pushed me behind the painted curtains upon the wall, my empty leather bag still in my hand. Then she took her taper and walked quickly into the room from which we had come. From where I stood I could see her through the open door.

“Is that you, Robert?” she cried.

The light of a candle shone through the door of the museum, and the shuffling steps came nearer and nearer. Then I saw a face in the doorway, a great, heavy face, all lines and creases, with a huge curving nose, and a pair of gold glasses fixed across it. He had to throw his head back to see through the glasses, and that great nose thrust out in front of him like the beak of some sort of fowl. He was a big man, very tall and burly, so that in his loose dressing gown his figure seemed to fill up the whole doorway. He had a pile of gray, curling hair all round his head, but his face was clean-shaven. His mouth was thin and small and prim, hidden away under his long, masterful nose. He stood there, holding the candle in front of him, and looking at his wife with a queer, malicious gleam in his eyes. It only needed that one look to tell me that he was as fond of her as she was of him.

“How's this?” he asked. “Some new tantrum? What do you mean by wandering about the house? Why don't you go to bed?”

“I could not sleep,” she answered. She spoke languidly and wearily. If she was an actress once, she had not forgotten her calling.

“Might I suggest,” said he, in the same mocking kind of voice, “that a good conscience is an excellent aid to sleep?”

“That cannot be true,” she answered, “for you sleep very well.”

“I have only one thing in my life to be ashamed of,” said he, and his hair bristled up with anger until he looked like an old cockatoo. “You know best what that is. It is a mistake which has brought its own punishment with it.”

“To me as well as to you. Remember that!”

“You have very little to whine about. It was I who stooped and you who rose.”

“Rose!”

“Yes, rose. I suppose you do not deny that it is promotion to exchange the music hall for Mannering Hall. Fool that I was ever to take you out of your true sphere!”

“If you think so, why do you not separate?”

“Because private misery is better than public humiliation. Because it is easier to suffer for a mistake than to own to it. Because also I like to keep you in my sight, and to know that you cannot go back to him.”

“You villain! You cowardly villain!”

“Yes, yes, my lady. I know your secret ambition, but it shall never be while I live, and if it happens after my death I will at least take care that you go to him as a beggar. You and dear Edward will never have the satisfaction of squandering my savings, and you may make up your mind to that, my lady. Why are those shutters and the window open?”

“I found the night very close.”

“It is not safe. How do you know that some tramp may not be outside? Are you aware that my collection of medals is worth more than any similar collection in the world? You have left the door open also. What is there to prevent anyone from rifling the cases?”

“I was here.”

“I know you were. I heard you moving about in the medal room, and that was why I came down. What were you doing?”

“Looking at the medals. What else should I be doing?”

“This curiosity is something new.” He looked suspiciously at her and moved on towards the inner room, she walking beside him.

It was at this moment that I saw something which startled me. I had laid my clasp knife open upon the top of one of the cases, and there it lay in full view. She saw it before he did, and with a woman's cunning she held her taper out so that the light of it came between Lord Mannering's eyes and the knife. Then she took it in her left hand and held it against her gown out of his sight. He looked about from case to case—I could have put my hand at one time upon his long nose—but there was nothing to show that the medals had been tampered with, and so, still snarling and grumbling, he shuffled off into the other room once more.

And now I have to speak of what I heard rather than of what I saw, but I swear to you, as I shall stand some day before my Maker, that what I say is the truth.

When they passed into the outer room I saw him lay his candle upon the corner of one of the tables, and he sat himself down, but in such a position that was just out of my sight. She moved behind him, as I could tell from the fact that the light of her taper threw his long, lumpy shadow upon the floor in front of him. Then he began talking about this man whom he called Edward, and every word that he said was like a blistering drop of vitriol. He spoke low, so that I could not hear it all, but from what I heard I should guess that she would as soon have been lashed with a whip. At first she said some hot words in reply, but then she was silent, and he went on and on in that cold, mocking voice of his, nagging and insulting and tormenting, until I wondered that she could bear to stand there in silence and listen to it. Then suddenly I heard him say in a sharp voice, “Come from behind me! Leave go of my collar! What! would you dare to strike me?” There was a sound like a blow, just a soft sort of thud, and then I heard him cry out, “My God, it's blood!” He shuffled with his feet as if he was getting up, and then I heard another blow, and he cried out, “Oh, you she-devil!” and was quiet, except for a dripping and splashing upon the floor.

I ran out from behind my curtain at that, and rushed into the other room, shaking all over with the horror of it. The old man had slipped down in the chair, and his dressing gown had rucked up until he looked as if he had a monstrous hump to his back. His head, with the gold glasses still fixed on his nose, was lolling over upon one side, and his little mouth was open just like a dead fish. I could not see where the blood was coming from, but I could still hear it drumming upon the floor. She stood behind him with the candle shining full upon her face. Her lips were pressed together and her eyes shining, and a touch of color had come into each of her cheeks. It just wanted that to make her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.

“You've done it now!” said I.

“Yes,” said she, in her quiet way, “I've done it now.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked. “They'll have you for murder as sure as fate.”

“Never fear about me. I have nothing to live for, and it does not matter. Give me a hand to set him straight in the chair. It is horrible to see him like this!”

I did so, though it turned me cold all over to touch him. Some of his blood came on my hand and sickened me.

“Now,” said she, “you may as well have the medals as anyone else. Take them and go.”

“I don't want them. I only want to get away. I was never mixed up with a business like this before.”

“Nonsense!” said she. “You came for the medals, and here they are at your mercy. Why should you not have them? There is no one to prevent you.”

I held the bag still in my hand. She opened the case, and between us we threw a hundred or so of the medals into it. They were all from the one case, but I could not bring myself to wait for any more. Then I made for the window, for the very air of this house seemed to poison me after what I had seen and heard. As I looked back, I saw her standing there, tall and graceful, with the light in her hand, just as I had seen her first. She waved good-bye, and I waved back at her and sprang out into the gravel drive.

I thank God that I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that I have never done a murder, but perhaps it would be different if I had been able to read that woman's mind and thoughts. There might have been two bodies in the room instead of one if I could have seen behind that last smile of hers. But I thought of nothing but of getting safely away, and it never entered my head how she might be fixing the rope round my neck. I had not taken five steps out from the window skirting down the shadow of the house in the way that I had come, when I heard a scream that might have raised the parish, and then another and another.

“Murder!” she cried, “Murder! Murder! Help!” and her voice rang out in the quiet of the nighttime and sounded over the whole countryside. It went through my head, that dreadful cry. In an instant lights began to move and windows to fly up, not only in the house behind me, but at the lodge and in the stables in front. Like a frightened rabbit I bolted down the drive, but I heard the clang of the gate being shut before I could reach it. Then I hid my bag of medals under some dry fagots, and I tried to get away across the park, but someone saw me in the moonlight, and presently I had half a dozen of them with dogs upon my heels. I crouched down among the brambles, but those dogs were too many for me, and I was glad enough when the men came up and prevented me from being torn into pieces. They seized me, and dragged me back to the room from which I had come.

“Is this the man, your Ladyship?” asked the oldest of them—the same whom I found out afterwards to be the butler.

She had been bending over the body, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and now she turned upon me with the face of a fury. Oh, what an actress that woman was!

“Yes, yes, it is the very man,” she cried. “Oh, you villain, you cruel villain, to treat an old man so!”

There was a man there who seemed to be a village constable. He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“What do you say to that?” said he.

“It was she who did it,” I cried, pointing at the woman, whose eyes never flinched before mine.

“Come! come! Try another!” said the constable, and one of the men-servants struck at me with his fist.

“I tell you that I saw her do it. She stabbed him twice with a knife. She first helped me to rob him, and then she murdered him.”

The footman tried to strike me again, but she held up her hand.

“Do not hurt him,” said she. “I think that his punishment may safely be left to the law.”

“I'll see to that, your Ladyship,” said the constable. “Your Ladyship actually saw the crime committed, did you not?”

“Yes, yes, I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible. We heard the noise and we came down. My poor husband was in front. The man had one of the cases open, and was filling a black leather bag which he held in his hand. He rushed past us, and my husband seized him. There was a struggle, and he stabbed him twice. There you can see the blood upon his hands. If I am not mistaken, his knife is still in Lord Mannering's body.”

“Look at the blood upon her hands!” I cried.

“She has been holding up his Lordship's head, you lying rascal,” said the butler.

“And here's the very sack her Ladyship spoke of,” said the constable, as a groom came in with the one which I had dropped in my flight. “And here are the medals inside it. That's good enough for me. We will keep him safe here tonight, and tomorrow the inspector and I can take him into Salisbury.”

“Poor creature,” said the woman. “For my own part, I forgive him any injury which he has done me. Who knows what temptation may have driven him to crime? His conscience and the law will give him punishment enough without any reproach of mine rendering it more bitter.”

I could not answer—I tell you, sir, I could not answer, so taken aback was I by the assurance of the woman. And so, seeming by my silence to agree to all that she had said, I was dragged away by the butler and the constable into the cellar, in which they locked me for the night.

There, sir, I have told you the whole story of the events which led up to the murder of Lord Mannering by his wife upon the night of September the 14th, in the year 1894. Perhaps you will put my statement on one side as the constable did at Mannering Towers, or the judge afterwards at the county assizes. Or perhaps you will see that there is the ring of truth in what I say, and you will follow it up, and so make your name forever as a man who does not grudge personal trouble where justice is to be done. I have only you to look to, sir, and if you will clear my name of this false accusation, then I will worship you as one man never yet worshiped another. But if you fail me, then I give you my solemn promise that I will rope myself up, this day month, to the bar of my window, and from that time on I will come to plague you in your dreams if ever yet one man was able to come back and to haunt another. What I ask you to do is very simple. Make inquiries about this woman, watch her, learn her past history, find out what use she is making of the money which has come to her, and whether there is not a man Edward as I have stated. If from all this you learn anything which shows you her real character, or which seems to you to corroborate the story which I have told you, then I am sure that I can rely upon your goodness of heart to come to the rescue of an innocent man.