Not a word was said to Laura when she returned as to the scene which had
occurred in her absence. She was in the gayest of spirits, and prattled
merrily about her purchases and her arrangements, wondering from time
to time when Raffles Haw would come. As night fell, however, without any
word from him, she became uneasy.
“What can be the matter that he does not come?” she said. “It is the
first day since our engagement that I have not seen him.”
Robert looked out through the window.
“It is a gusty night, and raining hard,” he remarked. “I do not at all
expect him.”
“Poor Hector used to come, rain, snow, or fine. But, then, of course, he
was a sailor. It was nothing to him. I hope that Raffles is not ill.”
“He was quite well when I saw him this morning,” answered her brother,
and they relapsed into silence, while the rain pattered against the
windows, and the wind screamed amid the branches of the elms outside.
Old McIntyre had sat in the corner most of the day biting his nails and
glowering into the fire, with a brooding, malignant expression upon his
wrinkled features. Contrary to his usual habits, he did not go to
the village inn, but shuffled off early to bed without a word to his
children. Laura and Robert remained chatting for some time by the fire,
she talking of the thousand and one wonderful things which were to be
done when she was mistress of the New Hall. There was less philanthropy
in her talk when her future husband was absent, and Robert could not but
remark that her carriages, her dresses, her receptions, and her travels
in distant countries were the topics into which she threw all the
enthusiasm which he had formerly heard her bestow upon refuge homes and
labour organisations.
“I think that greys are the nicest horses,” she said. “Bays are nice
too, but greys are more showy. We could manage with a brougham and a
landau, and perhaps a high dog-cart for Raffles. He has the coach-house
full at present, but he never uses them, and I am sure that those fifty
horses would all die for want of exercise, or get livers like Strasburg
geese, if they waited for him to ride or drive them.”
“I suppose that you will still live here?” said her brother.
“We must have a house in London as well, and run up for the season. I
don't, of course, like to make suggestions now, but it will be different
afterwards. I am sure that Raffles will do it if I ask him. It is all
very well for him to say that he does not want any thanks or honours,
but I should like to know what is the use of being a public benefactor
if you are to have no return for it. I am sure that if he does only
half what he talks of doing, they will make him a peer--Lord Tamfield,
perhaps--and then, of course, I shall be my Lady Tamfield, and what
would you think of that, Bob?” She dropped him a stately curtsey, and
tossed her head in the air, as one who was born to wear a coronet.
“Father must be pensioned off,” she remarked presently. “He shall have
so much a year on condition that he keeps away. As to you, Bob, I don't
know what we shall do for you. We shall make you President of the Royal
Academy if money can do it.”
It was late before they ceased building their air-castles and retired to
their rooms. But Robert's brain was excited, and he could not sleep.
The events of the day had been enough to shake a stronger man. There
had been the revelation of the morning, the strange sights which he
had witnessed in the laboratory, and the immense secret which had been
confided to his keeping. Then there had been his conversation with his
father in the afternoon, their disagreement, and the sudden intrusion
of Raffles Haw. Finally the talk with his sister had excited his
imagination, and driven sleep from his eyelids. In vain he turned and
twisted in his bed, or paced the floor of his chamber. He was not only
awake, but abnormally awake, with every nerve highly strung, and every
sense at the keenest. What was he to do to gain a little sleep? It
flashed across him that there was brandy in the decanter downstairs, and
that a glass might act as a sedative.
He had opened the door of his room, when suddenly his ear caught the
sound of slow and stealthy footsteps upon the stairs. His own lamp was
unlit, but a dim glimmer came from a moving taper, and a long black
shadow travelled down the wall. He stood motionless, listening intently.
The steps were in the hall now, and he heard a gentle creaking as the
key was cautiously turned in the door. The next instant there came a
gust of cold air, the taper was extinguished, and a sharp snap announced
that the door had been closed from without.
Robert stood astonished. Who could this night wanderer be? It must be
his father. But what errand could take him out at three in the morning?
And such a morning, too! With every blast of the wind the rain beat up
against his chamber-window as though it would drive it in. The glass
rattled in the frames, and the tree outside creaked and groaned as its
great branches were tossed about by the gale. What could draw any man
forth upon such a night?
Hurriedly Robert struck a match and lit his lamp. His father's room was
opposite his own, and the door was ajar. He pushed it open and looked
about him. It was empty. The bed had not even been lain upon. The single
chair stood by the window, and there the old man must have sat since he
left them. There was no book, no paper, no means by which he could have
amused himself, nothing but a razor-strop lying on the window-sill.
A feeling of impending misfortune struck cold to Robert's heart. There
was some ill-meaning in this journey of his father's. He thought of his
brooding of yesterday, his scowling face, his bitter threats. Yes, there
was some mischief underlying it. But perhaps he might even now be in
time to prevent it. There was no use calling Laura. She could be no help
in the matter. He hurriedly threw on his clothes, muffled himself in his
top-coat, and, seizing his hat and stick, he set off after his father.
As he came out into the village street the wind whirled down it, so that
he had to put his ear and shoulder against it, and push his way forward.
It was better, however, when he turned into the lane. The high bank and
the hedge sheltered him upon one side. The road, however, was deep in
mud, and the rain fell in a steady swish. Not a soul was to be seen, but
he needed to make no inquiries, for he knew whither his father had gone
as certainly as though he had seen him.
The iron side gate of the avenue was half open, and Robert stumbled his
way up the gravelled drive amid the dripping fir-trees. What could his
father's intention be when he reached the Hall? Was it merely that he
wished to spy and prowl, or did he intend to call up the master and
enter into some discussion as to his wrongs? Or was it possible that
some blacker and more sinister design lay beneath his strange doings?
Robert thought suddenly of the razor-strop, and gasped with horror. What
had the old man been doing with that? He quickened his pace to a run,
and hurried on until he found himself at the door of the Hall.
Thank God! all was quiet there. He stood by the big silent door and
listened intently. There was nothing to be heard save the wind and the
rain. Where, then, could his father be? If he wished to enter the Hall
he would not attempt to do so by one of the windows, for had he not been
present when Raffles Haw had shown them the precautions which he had
taken? But then a sudden thought struck Robert. There was one window
which was left unguarded. Haw had been imprudent enough to tell them
so. It was the middle window of the laboratory. If he remembered it so
clearly, of course his father would remember it too. There was the point
of danger.
The moment that he had come round the corner of the building he found
that his surmise had been correct. An electric lamp burned in the
laboratory, and the silver squares of the three large windows stood out
clear and bright in the darkness. The centre one had been thrown open,
and, even as he gazed, Robert saw a dark monkey-like figure spring up
on to the sill, and vanish into the room beyond. For a moment only it
outlined itself against the brilliant light beyond, but in that moment
Robert had space to see that it was indeed his father. On tiptoe he
crossed the intervening space, and peeped in through the open window. It
was a singular spectacle which met his eyes.
There stood upon the glass table some half-dozen large ingots of gold,
which had been made the night before, but which had not been removed to
the treasure-house. On these the old man had thrown himself, as one who
enters into his rightful inheritance. He lay across the table, his arms
clasping the bars of gold, his cheek pressed against them, crooning
and muttering to himself. Under the clear, still light, amid the giant
wheels and strange engines, that one little dark figure clutching and
clinging to the ingots had in it something both weird and piteous.
For five minutes or more Robert stood in the darkness amid the rain,
looking in at this strange sight, while his father hardly moved save to
cuddle closer to the gold, and to pat it with his thin hands. Robert
was still uncertain what he should do, when his eyes wandered from the
central figure and fell on something else which made him give a little
cry of astonishment--a cry which was drowned amid the howling of the
gale.
Raffles Haw was standing in the corner of the room. Where he had come
from Robert could not say, but he was certain that he had not been there
when he first looked in. He stood silent, wrapped in some long, dark
dressing-gown, his arms folded, and a bitter smile upon his pale face.
Old McIntyre seemed to see him at almost the same moment, for he
snarled out an oath, and clutched still closer at his treasure, looking
slantwise at the master of the house with furtive, treacherous eyes.
“And it has really come to this!” said Haw at last, taking a step
forward. “You have actually fallen so low, Mr. McIntyre, as to steal
into my house at night like a common burglar. You knew that this window
was unguarded. I remember telling you as much. But I did not tell you
what other means I had adopted by which I might be warned if knaves made
an entrance. But that you should have come! You!”
The old gunmaker made no attempt to justify himself, but he muttered
some few hoarse words, and continued to cling to the treasure.
“I love your daughter,” said Raffles Haw, “and for her sake I will not
expose you. Your hideous and infamous secret shall be safe with me. No
ear shall hear what has happened this night. I will not, as I might,
arouse my servants and send for the police. But you must leave my house
without further words. I have nothing more to say to you. Go as you have
come.”
He took a step forward, and held out his hand as if to detach the old
man's grasp from the golden bars. The other thrust his hand into the
breast of his coat, and with a shrill scream of rage flung himself upon
the alchemist. So sudden and so fierce was the movement that Haw had no
time for defence. A bony hand gripped him by the throat, and the blade
of a razor flashed in the air. Fortunately, as it fell, the weapon
struck against one of the many wires which spanned the room, and flying
out of the old man's grasp, tinkled upon the stone floor. But, though
disarmed, he was still dangerous. With a horrible silent energy he
pushed Haw back and back until, coming to a bench, they both fell over
it, McIntyre remaining uppermost. His other hand was on the alchemist's
throat, and it might have fared ill with him had Robert not climbed
through the window and dragged his father off from him. With the aid
of Haw, he pinned the old man down, and passed a long cravat around his
arms. It was terrible to look at him, for his face was convulsed, his
eyes bulging from his head, and his lips white with foam.
Haw leaned against the glass table panting, with his hand to his side.
“You here, Robert?” he gasped. “Is it not horrible? How did you come?”
“I followed him. I heard him go out.”
“He would have robbed me. And he would have murdered me. But he is
mad--stark, staring mad!”
There could be no doubt of it. Old McIntyre was sitting up now, and
burst suddenly into a hoarse peal of laughter, rocking himself backwards
and forwards, and looking up at them with little twinkling, cunning
eyes. It was clear to both of them that his mind, weakened by long
brooding over the one idea, had now at last become that of a monomaniac.
His horrid causeless mirth was more terrible even than his fury.
“What shall we do with him?” asked Haw. “We cannot take him back to
Elmdene. It would be a terrible shock to Laura.”
“We could have doctors to certify in the morning. Could we not keep him
here until then? If we take him back, some one will meet us, and there
will be a scandal.”
“I know. We will take him to one of the padded rooms, where he can
neither hurt himself nor anyone else. I am somewhat shaken myself. But I
am better now. Do you take one arm, and I will take the other.”
Half-leading and half-dragging him they managed between them to convey
the old gunmaker away from the scene of his disaster, and to lodge him
for the night in a place of safety. At five in the morning Robert had
started in the gig to make the medical arrangements, while Raffles Haw
paced his palatial house with a troubled face and a sad heart.