The girl drew back. Some vague instinct warned her.
"What is it, Sheumais? Why don't you speak?"
He drew her close again.
"Pulse of my heart, it is I who love you, I who love you best of all; it
is I, Gloom Achanna!"
With a cry she struck him full in the face. He staggered and in that
moment she freed herself.
"You _coward_!"
"Katreen, I----"
"Come no nearer. If you do, it will be the death of you!"
"The death o' me! Ah, bonnie fool that you are, and is it you that will
be the death o' me?"
"Ay, Gloom Achanna, for I have but to scream and Sheumais will be here,
an' he would kill you like a dog if he knew you did me harm."
"Ah, but if there were no Sheumais, or any man to come between me an' my
will!"
"Then there would be a woman! Ay, if you over-bore me I would strangle
you with my hair, or fix my teeth in your false throat!"
"I was not for knowing you were such a wild-cat; but I'll tame you yet,
my lass! Aha, wild-cat!" And as he spoke he laughed low.
"It is a true word, Gloom of the black heart. I am a wild-cat, and, like
a wild-cat, I am not to be seized by a fox; and that you will be finding
to your cost, by the holy St. Bridget! But now, off with you, brother of
my man!"
"Your man--ha! ha!"
"Why do you laugh?"
"Sure, I am laughing at a warm, white lass like yourself having a dead
man as your lover!"
"A--dead--man?"
No answer came. The girl shook with a new fear. Slowly she drew closer,
till her breath fell warm against the face of the other.
He spoke at last:
"Ay, a dead man."
"It is a lie."
"Where would you be that you were not hearing his good-bye? I'm thinking
it was loud enough!"
"It is a lie--it is a lie!"
"No, it is no lie. Sheumais is cold enough now. He's low among the weeds
by now. Ay, by now: down there in the lochan."
"_What_--you, _you devil_! Is it for killing your own brother you would
be?"
"I killed no one. He died his own way. Maybe the cramp took him.
Maybe--maybe a Kelpie gripped him. I watched. I saw him beneath the
green branches. He was dead before he died. I saw it in the white face
o' him. Then he sank. He's dead. Sheumais is dead. Look here, girl, I've
always loved you. I swore the oath upon you. You're mine. Sure, you're
mine now, Katreen! It is loving you I am! It will be a south wind for
you from this day, muirnean mochree! See here, I'll show you how I----"
"Back--back--_murderer_!"
"Be stopping that foolishness now, Katreen Macarthur! By the Book, I am
tired of it. I am loving you, and it's having you for mine I am! And if
you won't come to me like the dove to its mate, I'll come to you like
the hawk to the dove!"
With a spring he was upon her. In vain she strove to beat him back. His
arms held her as a stoat grips a rabbit.
He pulled her head back, and kissed her throat till the strangulating
breath sobbed against his ear. With a last despairing effort she
screamed the name of the dead man: "Sheumais! Sheumais! Sheumais!" The
man who struggled with her laughed.
"Ay, call away! The herrin' will be coming through the bracken as soon
as Sheumais comes to your call! Ah, it is mine you are now, Katreen!
He's dead and cold--an' you'd best have a living man--an'----"
She fell back, her balance lost in the sudden releasing. What did it
mean? Gloom still stood there, but as one frozen. Through the darkness
she saw, at last, that a hand gripped his shoulder; behind him a black
mass vaguely obtruded.
For some moments there was absolute silence. Then a hoarse voice came
out of the dark:
"You will be knowing now who it is, Gloom Achanna!"
The voice was that of Sheumais, who lay dead in the lochan. The murderer
shook as in a palsy. With a great effort, slowly he turned his head. He
saw a white splatch, the face of the corpse; in this white splatch
flamed two burning eyes, the eyes of the soul of the brother whom he had
slain.
He reeled, staggered as a blind man, and, free now of that awful clasp,
swayed to and fro as one drunken.
Slowly Sheumais raised an arm and pointed downward through the wood
toward the lochan. Still pointing, he moved swiftly forward.
With a cry like a beast, Gloom Achanna swung to one side, stumbled,
rose, and leaped into the darkness.
For some minutes Sheumais and Katreen stood, silent, apart, listening to
the crashing sound of his flight--the race of the murderer against the
pursuing shadow of the Grave.
THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS
AMELIA B. EDWARDS
The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and ten
years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early spring, the peace of Paris
had been concluded since March, our commercial relations with the
Russian Empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home after my
first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with the
prospect of spending the month of December under the hospitable and
thoroughly English roof of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf, Esq., of
Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia. My way lay by the Great East
Anglian line as far as Clayborough station, where I was to be met by one
of the Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the remaining nine miles
of country. Having arrived some seven minutes before the starting of the
train, and, by the connivance of the guard, taken sole possession of an
empty compartment, I lighted my travelling-lamp, made myself
particularly snug, and settled down to the undisturbed enjoyment of a
book and a cigar. Great, therefore, was my disappointment when, at the
last moment, a gentleman came hurrying along the platform, glanced into
my carriage, opened the locked door with a private key, and stepped in.
It struck me at the first glance that I had seen him before--a tall,
spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop in the
shoulders, and scant grey hair worn somewhat long upon the collar. He
carried a light waterproof coat, an umbrella, and a large brown japanned
deed-box, which last he placed under the seat.
I now recognized my companion. I had met him, as I distinctly
remembered, some three years before, at the very house for which, in all
probability, he was now bound, like myself. His name was Dwerrihouse; he
was a lawyer by profession, and, if I was not greatly mistaken, was
first cousin to the wife of my host. I thought, observing him by the
vague mixture of lamplight and twilight, that Mrs. Jelf's cousin looked
all the worse for the three years' wear and tear which had gone over his
head since our last meeting. He was very pale, and had a restless light
in his eye that I did not remember to have observed before. The anxious
lines, too, about his mouth were deepened, and there was a cavernous,
hollow look about his cheeks and temples which seemed to speak of
sickness or sorrow. When he had glanced at me for the third or fourth
time I ventured to address him.
"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, I think?"
"That is my name," he replied.
"I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dumbleton about three years ago."
Mr. Dwerrihouse bowed.
"I thought I knew your face," he said; "but your name, I regret to
say----"
"Langford--William Langford. I have known Jonathan Jelf since we were
boys together at Merchant Taylor's, and I generally spend a few weeks at
Dumbleton in the shooting season. I suppose we are bound for the same
destination?"
"Not if you are on your way to the manor," he replied. "I am travelling
upon business. You have heard perhaps that we are about to construct a
branch line from Blackwater to Stockbridge."
"You are an East Anglian director, I presume?"
"My interest in the company," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, "is threefold. I
am a director, I am a considerable shareholder, and, as the head of the
firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse & Craik, I am the company's principal
solicitor."
Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently
unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went on to
tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles he had
overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was entertained with
a multitude of local details and local grievances. The rapacity of one
squire, the impracticability of another, the indignation of the rector
whose glebe was threatened; and so on and on and on, till my head ached
and my attention flagged and my eyes kept closing in spite of every
effort that I made to keep them open. At length I was roused by these
words:
"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down."
"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down," I repeated, in the liveliest
tone I could assume. "That is a heavy sum."
"A heavy sum to carry here," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, pointing
significantly to his breast-pocket, "but a mere fraction of what we
shall ultimately have to pay."
"You do not mean to say that you have seventy-five thousand pounds at
this moment upon your person?" I exclaimed.
"My good sir, have I not been telling you so for the last half-hour?"
said Mr. Dwerrihouse, testily. "That money has to be paid over at
half-past eight o'clock this evening, at the office of Sir Thomas's
solicitors, on completion of the deed of sale."
"But how will you get across by night from Blackwater to Stockbridge
with seventy-five thousand pounds in your pocket?"
"To Stockbridge!" echoed the lawyer. "I find I have made myself very
imperfectly understood. I thought I had explained how this sum only
carries us as far as Mallingford--the first stage, as it were, of our
journey--and how our route from Blackwater to Mallingford lies entirely
through Sir Thomas Liddell's property."
"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I fear my thoughts were wandering.
So you only go as far as Mallingford tonight?"
"Precisely. I shall get a conveyance from the 'Blackwater Arms.' And
you?"
"Oh, Jelf sends a trap to meet me at Clayborough! Can I be the bearer of
any message from you?"
"You may say, if you please, Mr. Langford, that I wished I could have
been your companion all the way, and that I will come over, if possible,
before Christmas."
"Nothing more?"
Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled grimly. "Well," he said, "you may tell my cousin
that she need not burn the hall down in my honour _this_ time, and that
I shall be obliged if she will order the blue-room chimney to be swept
before I arrive."
"That sounds tragic. Had you a conflagration on the occasion of your
last visit to Dumbleton?"
"Something like it. There had been no fire lighted in my bedroom since
the spring, the flue was foul, and the rooks had built in it; so when I
went up to dress for dinner I found the room full of smoke and the
chimney on fire. Are we already at Blackwater?"
The train had gradually come to a pause while Mr. Dwerrihouse was
speaking, and, putting my head out of the window, I could see the
station some few hundred yards ahead. There was another train before us
blocking the way, and the guard was making use of the delay to collect
the Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained our position when
the ruddy-faced official appeared at our carriage door.
"Tickets, sir!" said he.
"I am for Clayborough," I replied, holding out the tiny pink card.
He took it, glanced at it by the light of his little lantern, gave it
back, looked, as I fancied, somewhat sharply at my fellow-traveller, and
disappeared.
"He did not ask for yours," I said, with some surprise.
"They never do," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse; "they all know me, and of
course I travel free."
"Blackwater! Blackwater!" cried the porter, running along the platform
beside us as we glided into the station.
Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed-box, put his travelling-cap in his
pocket, resumed his hat, took down his umbrella, and prepared to be
gone.
"Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," he said, with
old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a good-evening."
"Good-evening," I replied, putting out my hand.
But he either did not see it or did not choose to see it, and, slightly
lifting his hat, stepped out upon the platform. Having done this, he
moved slowly away and mingled with the departing crowd.
Leaning forward to watch him out of sight, I trod upon something which
proved to be a cigar-case. It had fallen, no doubt, from the pocket of
his waterproof coat, and was made of dark morocco leather, with a
silver monogram upon the side. I sprang out of the carriage just as the
guard came to lock me in.
"Is there one minute to spare?" I asked, eagerly. "The gentleman who
travelled down with me from town has dropped his cigar-case; he is not
yet out of the station."
"Just a minute and a half, sir," replied the guard. "You must be quick."
I dashed along the platform as fast as my feet could carry me. It was a
large station, and Mr. Dwerrihouse had by this time got more than
half-way to the farther end.
I, however, saw him distinctly, moving slowly with the stream. Then, as
I drew nearer, I saw that he had met some friend, that they were talking
as they walked, that they presently fell back somewhat from the crowd
and stood aside in earnest conversation. I made straight for the spot
where they were waiting. There was a vivid gas-jet just above their
heads, and the light fell full upon their faces. I saw both
distinctly--the face of Mr. Dwerrihouse and the face of his companion.
Running, breathless, eager as I was, getting in the way of porters and
passengers, and fearful every instant lest I should see the train going
on without me, I yet observed that the new-comer was considerably
younger and shorter than the director, that he was sandy-haired,
moustachioed, small-featured, and dressed in a close-cut suit of Scotch
tweed. I was now within a few yards of them. I ran against a stout
gentleman, I was nearly knocked down by a luggage-truck, I stumbled
over a carpet-bag; I gained the spot just as the driver's whistle warned
me to return.
To my utter stupefaction, they were no longer there. I had seen them but
two seconds before--and they were gone! I stood still. I looked to right
and left; I saw no sign of them in any direction. It was as if the
platform had gaped and swallowed them.
"There were two gentlemen standing here a moment ago," I said to a
porter at my elbow; "which way can they have gone?"
"I saw no gentlemen, sir," replied the guard.
The whistle shrilled out again. The guard, far up on the platform, held
up his arm, and shouted to me to "come on"!
"If you're going on by this train, sir," said the porter, "you must run
for it."
I did run for it, just gained the carriage as the train began to move,
was shoved in by the guard, and left breathless and bewildered, with Mr.
Dwerrihouse's cigar-case still in my hand.
It was the strangest disappearance in the world; it was like a
transformation trick in a pantomime. They were there one
moment--palpably there, talking, with the gaslight full upon their
faces--and the next moment they were gone. There was no door near, no
window, no staircase; it was a mere slip of barren platform, tapestried
with big advertisements. Could anything be more mysterious?
It was not worth thinking about, and yet, for my life, I could not help
pondering upon it--pondering, wondering, conjecturing, turning it over
and over in my mind, and beating my brains for a solution of the enigma.
I thought of it all the way from Blackwater to Clayborough. I thought of
it all the way from Clayborough to Dumbleton, as I rattled along the
smooth highway in a trim dog-cart, drawn by a splendid black mare and
driven by the silentest and dapperest of East Anglian grooms.
We did the nine miles in something less than an hour, and pulled up
before the lodge gates just as the church clock was striking half-past
seven. A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of the lighted hall
was flooding out upon the gravel, a hearty grasp was on my hand, and a
clear jovial voice was bidding me "welcome to Dumbleton."
I am not going to describe either the guests or the dinner that night.
All provincial parties bear the strictest family resemblance, and I am
not aware that an East Anglian banquet offers any exception to the rule.
There was the usual country baronet and his wife; there were the usual
country parsons and their wives; there was the sempiternal turkey and
haunch of venison. _Vanitas vanitatum._ There is nothing new under the
sun.
At length there came a pause. The entrées had just been removed, and the
turkey had come upon the scene. The conversation had all along been of
the languidest, but at this moment it happened to have stagnated
altogether. Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought I would relate my
adventure.
"By the way, Jelf," I began, "I came down part of the way today with a
friend of yours."
"Indeed!" said the master of the feast, slicing scientifically into the
breast of the turkey. "With whom, pray?"
"It was no less a person than your wife's cousin, Mr. John Dwerrihouse."
Jonathan Jelf laid down his knife and fork. Mrs. Jelf looked at me in a
strange, startled way, and said never a word.
"And he desired me to tell you, my dear madam, that you need not take
the trouble to burn the hall down in his honour, this time, but only to
have the chimney of the blue room swept before his arrival."
Before I had reached the end of my sentence I became aware of something
ominous in the faces of the guests. I felt I had said something which I
had better have left unsaid, and that for some unexplained reason my
words had evoked a general consternation. I sat confounded, not daring
to utter another syllable, and for at least two whole minutes there was
dead silence round the table. The guests hitherto had been simply dull,
but now they were evidently uncomfortable and embarrassed.
The dessert had scarcely been placed upon the table when the ladies left
the room. I seized the opportunity to select a vacant chair next a
certain Captain Prendergast.
"In Heaven's name," I whispered, "what was the matter just now? What had
I said?"
"You mentioned the name of John Dwerrihouse."
"What of that? I had seen him not two hours before."
"It is a most astounding circumstance that you should have seen him,"
said Captain Prendergast. "Are you sure it was he?"
"As sure as of my own identity. We were talking all the way between
London and Blackwater. But why does that surprise you?"
"Because," replied Captain Prendergast, dropping his voice to the lowest
whisper--"_because John Dwerrihouse absconded three months ago with
seventy-five thousand pounds of the company's money, and has never been
heard of since_."
John Dwerrihouse had absconded three months ago--and I had seen him only
a few hours back! John Dwerrihouse had embezzled seventy-five thousand
pounds of the company's money, yet told me that he carried that sum upon
his person! Were ever facts so strangely incongruous, so difficult to
reconcile? How should he have ventured again into the light of day? How
dared he show himself along the line? Above all, what had he been doing
throughout those mysterious three months of disappearance?
Perplexing questions these--questions which at once suggested themselves
to the minds of all concerned, but which admitted of no easy solution. I
could find no reply to them. Captain Prendergast had not even a
suggestion to offer. Jonathan Jelf, who seized the first opportunity of
drawing me aside and learning all that I had to tell, was more amazed
and bewildered than either of us. He came to my room that night, when
all the guests were gone, and we talked the thing over from every point
of view; without, it must be confessed, arriving at any kind of
conclusion.
"I do not ask you," he said, "whether you can have mistaken your man.
That is impossible."
"As impossible as that I should mistake some stranger for yourself."
"It is not a question of looks or voice, but of facts. That he should
have alluded to the fire in the blue room is proof enough of John
Dwerrihouse's identity. How did he look?"
"Older, I thought; considerably older, paler, and more anxious."
"He has had enough to make him look anxious, anyhow," said my friend,
gloomily, "be he innocent or guilty."
"I am inclined to believe that he is innocent," I replied. "He showed no
embarrassment when I addressed him, and no uneasiness when the guard
came round. His conversation was open to a fault. I might almost say
that he talked too freely of the business which he had in hand."
"That again is strange, for I know no one more reticent on such
subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand
pounds in his pocket?"
"He did."
"Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she may be right----"
"What idea?"
"Well, she fancies--women are so clever, you know, at putting themselves
inside people's motives--she fancies that he was tempted, that he did
actually take the money, and that he has been concealing himself these
three months in some wild part of the country, struggling possibly with
his conscience all the time, and daring neither to abscond with his
booty nor to come back and restore it."
"But now that he has come back?"
"That is the point. She conceives that he has probably thrown himself
upon the company's mercy, made restitution of the money, and, being
forgiven, is permitted to carry the business through as if nothing
whatever had happened."
"The last," I replied, "is an impossible case. Mrs. Jelf thinks like a
generous and delicate-minded woman, but not in the least like a board of
railway directors. They would never carry forgiveness so far."
"I fear not; and yet it is the only conjecture that bears a semblance of
likelihood. However, we can run over to Clayborough tomorrow and see if
anything is to be learned. By the way, Prendergast tells me you picked
up his cigar-case."
"I did so, and here it is."
Jelf took the cigar-case, examined it by the light of the lamp, and said
at once that it was beyond doubt Mr. Dwerrihouse's property, and that he
remembered to have seen him use it.
"Here, too, is his monogram on the side," he added--"a big J.
transfixing a capital D. He used to carry the same on his note-paper."
"It offers, at all events, a proof that I was not dreaming."
"Ay, but it is time you were asleep and dreaming now. I am ashamed to
have kept you up so long. Good-night."
"Good-night, and remember that I am more than ready to go with you to
Clayborough, or Blackwater, or London, or anywhere, if I can be of the
least service."
"Thanks! I know you mean it, old friend, and it may be that I shall put
you to the test. Once more, good-night."
So we parted for that night, and met again in the breakfast-room at
half-past eight the next morning. It was a hurried, silent,
uncomfortable meal; none of us had slept well, and all were thinking of
the same subject. Within twenty minutes after we had left the
breakfast-table the dog-cart was brought round, and my friend and I were
on the road to Clayborough.
"Tell you what it is, Langford," he said, as we sped along between the
wintry hedges, "I do not much fancy to bring up Dwerrihouse's name at
Clayborough. All the officials know that he is my wife's relation, and
the subject just now is hardly a pleasant one. If you don't much mind,
we will take the 11:10 to Blackwater. It's an important station, and we
shall stand a far better chance of picking up information there than at
Clayborough."
So we took the 11:10, which happened to be an express, and, arriving at
Blackwater about a quarter before twelve, proceeded at once to prosecute
our inquiry.
We began by asking for the station-master, a big, blunt, businesslike
person, who at once averred that he knew Mr. John Dwerrihouse perfectly
well, and that there was no director on the line whom he had seen and
spoken to so frequently.
"He is not known to have been down the line any time yesterday, for
instance?"
The station-master shook his head.
"The East Anglian, sir," said he, "is about the last place where he
would dare to show himself. Why, there isn't a station-master, there
isn't a guard, there isn't a porter who doesn't know Mr. Dwerrihouse by
sight as well as he knows his own face in the looking-glass, or who
wouldn't telegraph for the police as soon as he had set eyes on him at
any point along the line. Bless you, sir! there's been a standing order
out against him ever since the 25th of September last."
"Can you tell me who took the Blackwater tickets of that train?"
"I can, sir. It was the guard, Benjamin Somers."
"And where can I find him?"