A GYPSY’S EVIDENCE.
We must leave the court--now adjourned for luncheon--and follow Bartley
Bradstone.
He reached home more dead than alive after his fright in the woods,
and as he recovered his scattered senses, there flashed upon his
remembrance the note inclosing the confession. He would destroy that
the first thing, then he would pack his portmanteau, and, obeying
Faradeane’s instructions, run over to the Continent.
He thrust one hand into his coat pocket, and drew a candle toward him
with the other. Then he fell back, white to the lips, and with an
inarticulate cry. The packet had--gone!
He felt in every pocket, though he knew well that he had put it in his
overcoat breast-pocket as he stood on the steps of the Grange--shook
his coat, unfolded and shook his handkerchief, and examined the room.
With quaking limbs he put on his hat, and, scrutinizing every inch of
the way, retraced his steps through the house and down the drive, along
the road and up the Grange avenue, almost as far as the railings where
he had seen the apparition, but not quite so far. Even to recover the
fatal letter he could not bring himself to face that awful spot again.
But the letter was nowhere to be seen. Worn out with anxiety, he went
back to The Maples and flung himself into a chair. To leave the place
with that damning confession of his guilt he knew not where, he felt
was an impossibility. A dull kind of despair seized upon him, and
held him in complete thrall. He crawled up to bed at last, but not to
sleep. All night he tortured himself by imagining the discovery of
the confession by some one who would either carry it to the police
station or to Olivia. If the person who found it followed the former
course, then all was over with him, and flight would be useless. Before
he could reach London--now--the telegraph would be in operation, and
detectives would be waiting for him at every station. If, on the other
hand, it should be carried to Olivia--well, she would, she must send
for him, and he would have to face a new phase of the danger.
He went downstairs the next morning casting restless, suspicious
glances over the balustrade, expecting to see a policeman in the hall;
but as the day passed and no one came--no detective, and no message
from Olivia--his spirits rose somewhat.
“I may have dropped it as I stood leaning against the railing; it must
have come out with my handkerchief when I saw----” He stopped with a
shudder. “Perhaps luck is going to stand by me still, and the cursed
thing has been blown into the wood and is hidden under the bracken.
If so”--he got up with renewed energy--“if so, let it lie there until
after the trial, after I come back. He will be put out of the way then!”
This view of the case was so encouraging that he dwelt on it, repeating
it over and over again, and then went upstairs and secretly began to
make preparations for his departure. He prepared the way by reading
one of his letters, while the butler was in the room, and uttering
exclamations of impatience and annoyance.
“Tut, tut! I shall have to go to town, I’m afraid,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said the butler, as he removed the untouched breakfast.
“Yes. But I’m not certain. Let me see, what are the trains?”
“There’s the one at midday--you have just lost the morning one,
sir--and the evening train.”
Bartley Bradstone thought rapidly. It was just possible that even now,
or later in the morning, some one might pick up the letter and take it
to Olivia, and he might hear from her. He would wait until the evening
train.
He passed the day going over his papers and letters, destroying some
and placing the others in the safe. He had not opened it since the
wedding day, on which he had taken out the revolver, and he stood
before it, looking into its depths with a dull apathy. It was difficult
to realize that he--Bartley Bradstone--was--a murderer; that but for
the noble heroism and self-sacrifice of the man he hated most in the
world, he would at that moment be in the cell, instead of Faradeane,
awaiting his trial!
He had been a cunning, an unscrupulous man, an adventurer who had never
hesitated at any mean or base action, so long as it was just within the
law; who had never hesitated to secure or push an unfair advantage, at
whatever cost to others. But murder! With a shudder he shut the safe
to, as if he would shut out all remembrance of his crime.
Having secured and destroyed his papers, he finished his packing.
He had always been lavish in decking his person with jewelry, and
the trinkets and odds and ends of gold and gems which he possessed
represented a large sum of money. He thought of packing them and taking
them with him, but ultimately decided to leave them behind, and locked
them in his safe.
Then he forced himself to eat a little of the early dinner which had
been provided for him, and at last got into the carriage and was driven
to the station. He noticed the Grange carriage standing at the steps,
but he saw that it was empty, and concluded that it had been sent to
bring the squire, who may have been traveling up the line on some
business.
He did not see Bessie, who was standing in the shadow; and, more
important still, he did not see Seth and the woman who entered the
train just as it was starting.
Coiled in a corner of a first-class compartment, he tried to sleep, but
every jolt and rattle of the train seemed to voice that sudden shriek
which rose from the lips of Bella-Bella as the bullet struck her, and
he tossed and turned in that hideous, acute wakefulness which is a
signpost on the road to madness.
Then it suddenly occurred to him that possibly the note had been found
and the police were already searching for him! If so, to alight at the
London terminus would be to step into the arms of his captors. His
ready brain met this new difficulty and danger. He resolved to get out
at one of the stations on the line this side of London, and, after some
consideration, fixed upon Basingstoke.
When the train pulled up at the station, he called a porter to take
his portmanteau, and stepped quickly, but not hurriedly, from the train
and passed into the refreshment room.
As he did so, a window in a third-class compartment was gently let
down, and Seth looked out in time to see Bartley Bradstone’s back, as
it disappeared. Seth turned to Liz, who was crouched in the corner.
“I’m going to get out here,” he said. “You go on to London to the old
shop, and don’t you stir hand or foot till I come to you--if it’s days
or weeks, d’ye hear?--or I’ll----”
She looked at him; then, with a sigh, flung her shawl over her face.
He got out, and with an affectation of indifference, sauntered along
the platform, and hiding himself behind the projecting side of the book
stall, took out a paper and held it up before his face as if he were
reading, but every now and then glanced round it toward the door of the
refreshment room.
Presently the man he waited for came out and walked up the platform. He
stopped at the book stall and bought a London paper and some magazines.
A porter came up, and Bartley Bradstone beckoned to him.
“There is a branch line from here to Paddington, the Great Western
station, isn’t there?”
“Yes; but it’s rather a roundabout way, sir,” answered the porter.
“I know,” said Bartley Bradstone, as if he had expected to meet the
remark. “But I’m in no particular hurry to reach London. I want to
sleep.”
“All right, sir,” said the porter. “Train is due in ten minutes.”
Bartley Bradstone gave him some coppers, then went and took a ticket.
The station was comparatively empty by this time, and Seth was too
cunning to emerge from his hiding-place, in which he waited, still
studying his newspaper, until the train came up.
Then he watched Bartley Bradstone enter a carriage, and, carefully
screening himself behind the passers-by, Seth stole gently into a
third-class compartment, and, covering his face with his handkerchief,
began to snore. The ticket collector came and shook him; but Seth
seemed only capable of muttering “London,” and eventually the collector
gave it up, remarking:
“Well, you’ll have to pay at the other end, my friend.”
The murky haze of an early autumn morning hung over London, as the
train steamed into the terminus. Bartley Bradstone woke--he had fallen
into the deep sleep of exhaustion--and got out.
During the journey he had come to a decision as to his movements. He
had remembered reading somewhere, in connection with the case of a
criminal who had succeeded in evading the most rigorous police search,
that there was no place in which a man could conceal himself as in a
great city.
Why should he go to the Continent, where he could be so easily traced,
if anybody wished to track him? Why should he not hide himself in
London, where he could inform himself, through the newspapers, of
every detail of the trial at Wainford? Then, if all went well--that
is, if Faradeane were found guilty and--and----Even mentally he could
not conclude the sentence. But if “all went well,” then he could go
back and claim Olivia; then he could leave England with her--with
her!--forever!
In some of the quiet streets leading off the Strand there are several
private hotels, as quiet as the streets in which they stand. The
patrons of these hotels are colonial and provincial folk, who come and
go, appearing on the scene once only, perhaps, and then disappearing,
unquestioned and unnoticed--caught up, as it were, on the wheel of the
great city, and lost like a drop in the ocean.
He called a cab and told the man to drive to Barlow’s Hotel, Denmark
street. A minute or so of delay occurred in the hoisting of his
portmanteau on to the roof, and in that space of time Seth, with the
unobtrusive movements of a gypsy, had got into another cab.
“Just follow my master, will you?” he said.
The two cabs sped on their way; but suddenly the first came to a stop.
Bartley Bradstone, in sheer absence of mind, had opened his newspaper,
which he had put in his pocket unglanced at when he bought it, and the
first words that met his eyes were:
“Disaster in the City. Failure of the South Indian Bank!”
For a moment the line of large type conveyed no special significance to
his mind; then suddenly it flashed upon him that the bank was one of
the schemes in which he had taken a part, and a large part.
He put his hand to his aching brow and tried to remember what he had
lately done in the matter. It seemed to him that he recollected sending
his tool, Ezekiel Mowle, instructions to sell out his shares and close
his connection with the affair; but his brain would not act with its
usual readiness in the direction of his ordinary business; it was all
too absorbed in the more important matter of life and death.
Had he or had he not given the proper instructions to Mowle? He tried
to put the question, the whole business out of his head; but the
instincts of the money-spinner overreached the cunning caution of the
criminal, and with a muttered oath, he put up the trapdoor in the cab
and told the man to drive him to Ethelred Chambers in the city.
Cabmen are accustomed to these sudden re-directions, and without a
word, the man turned his horse in the direction of the city.
“Your guv’nor didn’t seem to know his own mind,” growled Seth’s cabman,
through the hole in the roof.
“Follow him!” said Seth, whose blood was beginning to stir within his
veins, as the lurcher’s or the sleuthhound’s will when hot upon the
trail.
Bartley Bradstone’s cab pulled up at Ethelred Chambers, and, telling
the cabman to wait, he went up the stairs, and, without knocking,
opened the door of a dingy office and walked in.
Ezekiel Mowle was seated at a table, his huge mouth open, his lantern
jaws working eagerly, as he sprawled over a desk, writing apparently
for dear life. The office, the furniture of which would not have
realized five-and-thirty shillings, was in extreme disorder, and a
Gladstone bag was lying half open on the floor, as if it had been
hurriedly thrown there.
Mr. Mowle looked up with a start, and, uttering an exclamation, covered
the paper before him with his huge, bony hand. If his employer had been
a ghost--and, indeed, Bartley Bradstone looked not unlike one--Mr.
Mowle could not have been more startled.
“Mr. Bradstone, sir! This is a surprise. How do you do, sir? I am
afraid you’re not looking well. Take a chair, Mr. Bradstone,” and he
drew the chair out and stood with his head thrust forward, rubbing
his hands and eying Bartley Bradstone with a wary and still startled
watchfulness.
Bartley Bradstone took off his hat and wiped his brow.
“I am not very well, Mowle,” he said. “I have come up on important
business. What the devil is the office in such a state for? Where are
you going?”
Mr. Mowle changed color, but stood rubbing his hands and working his
long neck.
“The fact is, Mr. Bradstone, I was just thinking of coming down to you.”
“Coming down to me!” said Bartley Bradstone, with a frown.
“Why----Well, sir, I wanted to place one or two matters before you. The
fact is, things have not been very bright in the city of late, and I
have not had the advantage of your advice quite so much, and perhaps
you have heard the news.”
“What news?” asked Bartley Bradstone.
“I allude to the South Indian Bank, Mr. Bradstone,” said Mr. Mowle,
passing his hand over his mouth and eying Bartley Bradstone with the
same watchful and deprecatory manner.
“Well, what about it?” said Bartley Bradstone; “I wrote and gave you
instructions to sell those South Indian Bank shares a week ago.”
Mr. Mowle gave a little start, and shook his head apologetically.
“I--I beg your pardon, sir; I think a slight misunderstanding,” as if
he were trying to gain time to collect himself.
“Misunderstanding! What do you mean? Do you mean to say I didn’t write?”
“I did not say you did not write, Mr. Bradstone; but I certainly did
not receive the letter.”
Bartley Bradstone rose and clutched the back of his chair, and for a
moment seemed incapable of speech, and then he said:
“Do you mean to tell me that the shares of the South Indian still stand
in my name?”
Mr. Mowle put out one hand.
“No, no, no, Mr. Bradstone, I don’t say that,” he said, with a sudden
change of face; “I said I did not receive your letter. Pray take a
seat. Pray sit down again, sir, and compose yourself. Fortunately, I
have had my eye upon the bank for some time past, and when the critical
moment came, I sold out.”
Bartley Bradstone sank into a chair and drew a breath of relief.
“That is well, Mowle,” he said. “You gave me a turn. If you had not
unloaded those shares for me, things would have looked bad. Now I want
you to realize these things.”
He took a list from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Mowle.
Mr. Mowle went back to the table and examined the list with respectful
anxiousness, and as he did so, he put up his hand before his face,
which underwent some peculiar changes of expression.
“I think I had better see to some of these things at once, sir,” he
said.
“Do,” said Bartley Bradstone, curtly.
“Will you wait, sir? Or will you come in again? I shan’t be more than
half an hour or so. I hope things are all well down at The Maples,
Mr. Bradstone? What a lovely place it is, to be sure; quite a palace.
And Mrs. Bradstone, sir--I do trust she is better. What a painful,
mysterious affair that murder is, sir!”
“Yes, yes,” said Bartley Bradstone. “Yes, Mrs. Bradstone is better,
and a man’s being tried for the murder. I think I’ll go down to the
bank, while you sell that stock. Why the devil don’t you open the
window in this room? It smells like a charcoal house,” and he wiped his
burning forehead.
“Yes, yes, it is, sir,” said Mr. Mowle; “it is rather close,” and he
shuffled to the window and made a vain attempt to open it.
Bartley Bradstone put on his hat and walked out of the room, telling
the cabman to wait while he walked toward the bank. There he changed a
check.
The cashier did not, as usual, scoop out the money with a respectful
smile, but took the check, apparently, into the manager’s room. He came
out after a minute or two and changed the check.
“We have not had your passbook for some weeks, sir,” he said, as he
passed the money over.
Bartley Bradstone scarcely noticed him, but went out into the street
again. He turned into a refreshment bar and got a glass of sherry.
Half an hour, perhaps, passed, then he made his way back to Ethelred
Chambers. Just as he was within sight of them, a gentleman ran up
against him, and was making the usual apology, when he broke off with:
“Hallo, Bradstone! is that you? I say, my dear fellow, what a deuce of
a mess we’re in!”
“What do you mean?” said Bradstone.
“Well! Good heavens, man, I mean this infernal bank.”
“The South Indian?” said Bartley Bradstone, quite easily.
The gentleman stared at him.
“Well, you take it pretty coolly, Bradstone,” he said. “But I suppose
to a man with your pile a facer like this does not matter, though I had
an impression that you were in it more deeply than any of us. Why, it
was one of your pet schemes, was it not?” and he smiled and winked.
Bartley Bradstone nodded curtly.
“Yes, I was in it pretty deeply,” he said. “But I sold out a week ago.”
The other man stared at him.
“Why, man, your name is still in the list of shareholders published
to-day. Look here,” and he drew the city paper from his pocket, rapidly
found the paragraph, and thrust it into Bradstone’s hands.
Bartley Bradstone looked at it, then turned white.
“There is some mistake,” he said. “I tell you I sold out a week
ago--every share.”
The man looked at him with something like pity.
“By the Lord!” he muttered, under his breath, “the blow has sent him
off his head!” But pity is too expensive a commodity in the city.
It requires too much time. With a “Well, good-by, old fellow,” the
gentleman hurried on and left Bartley Bradstone standing with the paper
in his hand, looking like a man completely dazed.
The crowd of passers-by jostled him and pushed him all unheeded; but at
last he seemed to awake, and hurrying onward, ran up the steps and into
Mr. Mowle’s office.
Mr. Mowle was not there. He had gone, and so had the Gladstone bag!
The office, too, was in greater disorder than before; and Bartley
Bradstone, sinking into the chair before the table, saw a letter
addressed to him lying on the desk. He tore it open with shaking
fingers.
Am detained. Shall be back in an hour.
Suspicious and bewildered, Bartley Bradstone paced up and down the
office, then he went to a safe which stood in the corner of the room.
Unlocking it, he began to examine its contents. Then he uttered a cry
of mingled rage and despair.
Like a flash of lightning the truth burst upon him. Ezekiel Mowle,
the tool whom he had held under his thumb--the worm upon whom he had
trodden so often--had turned at last. Scrip, securities, mortgages had
all gone. The South Indian Bank shares had not been sold.
He remembered now the cashier’s manner when he presented the check, and
he knew, as well as if Mowle had confessed, that he had embezzled every
penny of the vast sum which Bartley Bradstone had, with contemptuous
confidence, left at his disposal.
Quite faint, sick, feeling more driven and helpless than he had ever
felt before, he struggled to the table and drank a glass of water. What
should he do? Throughout all the terrible time of peril he felt that at
least he had one thing to help him--his immense wealth. Now that that
had gone, what should he do?
He leaned his head upon his hand, and forced himself to think.
With the exception of the sum which he had obtained at the bank, he had
no ready money whatever.
Mr. Mowle could not make away with The Maples, and probably only that
remained. That could not be realized without time. Then he remembered
his jewelry. At all costs he must get that. It would sell for
something--would bring enough, perhaps, to enable him to leave England.
He must go back to Hawkwood.
Pulling himself together, he went downstairs. On the way, the desire to
punish the man who had betrayed him took full possession of him; but
he knew that the longing for vengeance could not be satisfied. Any
attempt to punish Mowle would reveal to the whole world the connection
between them, and would brand him with infamy and disgrace. He got into
the cab, and told the man to drive to Waterloo.
Seth, in his cab, followed at a discreet distance.
Luck favored Bartley Bradstone. The West of England train was leaving
in a few minutes. Weary, tortured by anxiety, he threw himself into the
corner of a carriage and closed his eyes.
It was nearly midnight when the train reached Wainford station, and a
true Devonshire drizzle had set in. With the exception of a solitary
porter, there was no life about the station.
Exhausted as he was, he must walk to The Maples. Perhaps it was as
well; he could secure his jewels, and, by good luck, leave the house
without being seen.
Slowly he dragged himself along the muddy roads, reached the lodge, and
had got his key in a side door which he sometimes used, when he heard a
voice close behind him.
With a hoarse cry he turned and staggered back. The night was dark,
and he could distinguish nothing for a moment or two. Then he saw a
man standing at the bottom of the steps, with his hands thrust in his
pockets, and an expression of sullen impatience on his face.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” demanded Bartley Bradstone.
Seth came up the steps and looked at him.
“I want to know how much longer this is a-goin’ on, Mister Bradstone,”
he said. “This ’ere game’s a-gettin’ too thin. If you ain’t tired, I
am. I suppose you thought you could give me the slip, but you reckoned
without your man, Mister Bradstone.”
Bartley Bradstone leaned against the door and stared at him
breathlessly.
“I do not know you,” he said. “You’ve made some mistake. You know my
name. What do you want with me?”
Seth laughed shortly.
“Let’s go inside,” he said.
Bartley Bradstone took the key out of the door and put it in his pocket.
“Say what you have to say here,” he said. “I never saw you before. I do
not know what you want with me; if you have come to extort money on any
pretext, you’ve come to the wrong man.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t,” sneered Seth. “I’ve come to the right man. You
don’t know me; but I know you and I knew Bella Lee.”
Bartley Bradstone drew a short breath and put his hand to his heart.
“You knew Bella Lee?” he said. “What has that to do with me?”
Seth laughed unpleasantly.
“A good deal, I should think, seein’ as you was ’er ’usband.”
Bartley Bradstone’s face went livid, and he looked from side to side,
like the hunted man he was.
“How do you know that?” he demanded. “Who told you?”
“I saw you married,” replied Seth, coolly. “Come, Mister Bradstone,
don’t put my back up. I’m rather tired of this game o’ chevyin’ you up
to London and back again, and I want to come to business. I know more
about you and Bella than you think for.”
“Go on,” said Bartley Bradstone. “Tell me what you know or think you
know.”
“I will,” said Seth. “I know more than the judge and jury as ’ull try
Mr. Faradeane, and, by God, I’ll tell ’em, if you don’t make it worth
my while to hold my tongue.”
Bartley Bradstone stood with his eyes upon the ground, his lips tightly
compressed. He seemed to feel the meshes of a huge, wide-spreading net
closing round him. Whichever way he turned, he was met by some obstacle
to his escape.
And this man who had, unseen, tracked him step by step throughout the
day, what did he know? And how much? At all costs he must learn this.
He opened the door. “Come inside,” he said; and leading the way to the
library and turning up the gas, looked keenly at Seth’s dark face and
slouching figure. “You say, my man, that you know something about this
murder. Do you know who did it?”
“I do,” said Seth, seating himself on a corner of the costly inlaid
table and kicking his leg to and fro in an insolent fashion.
“You do!” said Bartley Bradstone, with a long breath. “I was just going
to offer a hundred pounds reward for such information as would lead to
the discovery of the man who committed the crime. I will give you that
hundred pounds now if you will tell me what you know.”
Seth stared at him, then smacked his leg and laughed.
“A hundred pounds! I should think so! If you was to ask me, I should
consider it cheap at a thousand, and that’s the figure I mean to ask
for it. And if yer takes my advice, the advice of a man as don’t wish
you no particular harm, you’ll hand over that thousand pounds, and say
no more about it. You can rely on me. I can keep my mouth shut. I’m
sick o’ England, and I’m ready to go wherever you like and keep there.”
Bartley Bradstone remained silent for a moment or two, then he said,
huskily:
“Supposing your information were worth the money, my man, I could not
give it you.”
Seth stared and laughed incredulously.
Bartley Bradstone bit his lip.
“What I tell you is true. I can no more give you a thousand pounds than
you can give it to me.”
“Now, guv’nor, come, no gammon,” said Seth, impatiently. “If you’ve got
any sense, any gratitood, you’d fork out the money and say ‘thank you.’
What’s a thousand pounds when a man’s life’s at stake!”
Bartley Bradstone shuddered and sank into a chair.
“I tell you, I can’t do it,” he said.
Seth looked round at the handsomely furnished room, at the costly
hangings, the rows on rows of elegantly bound books and silver
knick-knacks on the tables, the carved oak and beveled mirrors, and
laughed again.
“It won’t do, guv’nor,” he said. “Look ’ee here,” and he leaned forward
and shook his fist in Bartley Bradstone’s face, “I’m not to be trifled
with. Give the money I asks yer for, or I go and give the police the
information I have offered you. They’ll pay for it, and be only too
glad.”
Bartley Bradstone rose and nerved himself for the struggle.
“What information can you give them? You say you know something of this
murder. How much?”
“Everything,” retorted Seth. “Why, guv’nor----”
He bent forward and whispered a few words in Bartley Bradstone’s ear.
Bartley Bradstone shrank back, and great beads of perspiration stood
out upon his forehead; but then, bracing himself together, he laughed.
“Oh! that is it, is it?” he said. “My friend, you know too much. You
threaten me! You seem to have forgotten that a man who knows so much,
very probably knows more than is safe for himself.”
Seth looked at him with knitted brows.
“What d’yer mean?” he said.
Bartley Bradstone thrust his hands into his pockets.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that if you carried this story to the
police they’d probably be inclined to ask how it happens that you
haven’t spoken before. They’ll want to know what was your connection
with the dead woman, and what has become of the property which she had
on her person when she was shot; and I should think it not unlikely
that the police would make it unpleasant for a gentleman of your
appearance, and with your past history. In fact, if you ask me my
opinion, I should say that before an hour had passed you yourself would
be charged with the murder of the woman of whom you know so much.
What’s to prevent my telling them what you’ve now said against me? In
fact, my friend, why should I not turn the tables? Now, come; you look
like a sensible man. Take the money I have offered you to leave the
country.”
Seth, with white face and flaming eyes, glared at him for a moment in
breathless silence. Then he said, hoarsely:
“By Heaven, you are a cool hand, Mister Bradstone, and I admire yer;
but it won’t do. I mean to have that thousand pounds if I dog yer day
and night. I don’t want to blab on yer; it ’ud be awkward for me to
come forward as a public character. I admits as much, so I’ll come to
terms with yer. Hand up the money, and save yer cleverness for the time
you’ll want it--and from what I knows of such men as you, that time
won’t be long a-comin’.”
Bartley Bradstone buttoned his coat.
“You may do your worst,” he said. “The hundred pounds is still yours,
if you like to take it, but not one penny more.”
Seth laughed.
“Will you take my offer?”
“No,” said Seth, with an oath.
“Very well,” said Bradstone, and he put on his hat and walked toward
the door.
“Where are you a-goin’?” demanded Seth.
Bartley Bradstone made no reply; he unlocked the side door and opened
it. It was still raining, and dark as pitch. He went down the steps,
Seth following close upon his heels, down the drive, out of the lodge
and into the muddy lane; and, like a shadow, Seth still followed.
From the lane Bartley Bradstone turned to the left, into a path that
led toward the wood. He could scarcely have told, had he been asked
his object in taking this path. His one idea was to get away from The
Maples, where Seth could give the alarm. In the confusion of his mind,
in the deadly agony of his fear, he almost lost consciousness of the
spy who still hung on to him.
Suddenly Seth reminded him of his presence. Stepping up beside him, he
put his hand upon his arm. “’Ere, guv’nor,” he said, “I’m sick o’ this.
I think I’ll be able to show you that you’d better come to terms. I was
only playing with you, up there at the house. I’ve got evidence that’ll
put you out o’ the way without an ounce o’ trouble.”
“Evidence?” said Bartley Bradstone, with a sneer; “evidence of a gypsy
pickpocket against the word of a well-known gentleman.”
“Yah!” snarled Seth. “Look ’ee ’ere!” and he took from his pocket
an envelope torn in two. “Look ’ee ’ere; do yer know that?” and he
flourished it in Bartley Bradstone’s face.
Dark as it was, Bartley Bradstone saw the piece of paper and knew that
it was the confession which he had dropped in the Grange avenue. With
a cry he sprang forward, but desperation even could not lend him the
activity which is the gypsy’s birthright.
With an answering cry of triumph, Seth whipped the letter behind him
and caught Bartley Bradstone by the throat. For a moment or two the men
struggled in that deadly silence. Despair and excitement lent Bartley
Bradstone fictitious strength, and as he locked his arms round the
gypsy’s lithe form, he exerted every muscle and succeeded in getting
him down upon his knee; but as he did so, Seth slipped, as if he had
fallen, and, turning like a greyhound, again caught Bartley Bradstone
by the throat and laid him full length upon the ground.
Panting as much with rage as want of breath, the gypsy glowered down
upon him.
“You’re a pretty customer to deal with,” he said. “Get up! Put your
hand on me again and I’ll--I’ll kill you. Now, what do you mean to do?
You ain’t got to deal with a helpless woman, Mr. Bradstone, but with
a man. Will yer give me the thousand pounds now, or shall I take this
letter to the police?”
Bartley Bradstone got up and leaned against a tree.
“I’ll give it you,” he said.
“Walk in front, then,” said Seth, motioning to him suddenly.
Breathing hard, he obeyed. Thus they went slowly to The Maples. Bartley
Bradstone unlocked the door and went into the library. Seth looked
round.
“Give me something to drink,” he said, hoarsely.
Bartley Bradstone, without a word, as if he were completely cowed,
went to the sideboard and got out the brandy. Seth instantly took the
decanter from his hand and helped himself.
“Now,” he said, “look sharp--the money--the money!”
Bartley Bradstone drew a checkbook from a drawer. Seth watched him
suspiciously.
“What’s that?” he said.
“A check.”
“What’s the good of that to me?” said Seth. “I want money--gold, notes.”
Bartley Bradstone forced a smile.
“Do you think I keep a thousand pounds in the house in gold or notes?”
he said. “You’re not so ignorant as you pretend; you have only to take
this check to the bank to get it turned into money--gold or notes.”
Seth looked at him with half-closed eyes.
“And suppose you stop it?” he said.
Bartley Bradstone smiled again.
“Is that likely?” he said. “Do you think that I am likely to run any
more risk? Give me the letter. Take the check and leave me in peace.”
Seth took the torn note from his pocket and looked from it to Bartley
Bradstone’s white face, doubtfully and suspiciously.
“What hold have I got on yer,” he said, “if I give yer this note and
find the check ain’t honored?”
Bartley Bradstone raised his eyebrows.
“You’ll have to trust me,” he said. “You shall have the check on no
other terms. I’m a desperate man to-night; I feel so sick, so driven,
that I’d as leave balk you of your money and tell the truth myself. I
give you two minutes to decide. Take the check, give me the note, and
be off, or go and do your worst.”
Seth slouched round the table, still holding the note, and looking
fiercely into Bradstone’s eyes.
“By God!” he said; “if I thought you were playin’ me false--but I don’t
think you’d dare. Give me over the check; there’s the note.”
Bartley Bradstone clutched the two halves of the envelope and pointed
to the door. Seth, still looking at him, poured out a glass of brandy.
“All right, guv’nor, I’m off. And now, if a cove as knows what’s what
may offer a word of advice, I’d say, make yersel’ scarce as soon as
possible. This is an awkward business. This ’ere Mr. Faradeane has got
friends, and they won’t let him be scragged if they can help it. Why,
even now they may be on the right scent. When I was a-follerin’ you
in the city, there was a gent with a smooth face as came across you
twice, and looked at you in a way as I knows pretty well by this time;
and I see him at the station agen when you was comin’ back. It might
mean nothin’, but a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind hoss. Hook it,
guv’nor, sharp,” and with a nod he turned up the collar of his coat,
pulled his cap well over his face, and went out.