In the cool sunshine of the early May morning Government House lay
asleep. The gardener was mowing a distant part of the lawn when he
saw a carriage drive rapidly up to the porch. Two gentlemen got out
of it, and in less time than it took him to empty his grass-pan into
his wheelbarrow they rang three times at the door.
Inside the house nobody was yet stirring except old John, the
watchman, who was drawing the curtains and opening the windows. He
heard the bell and thought the postman had brought a registered
letter. In his cloth shoes he was shuffling to the vestibule when
the bell rang again and yet again.
"_Traa de looiar_" ("Time enough"), he growled, but his voice fell to
a more deferential tone when he opened the door, and saw who was
there.
"Our apologies to His Excellency, and say the Attorney-General and
the Chief Constable wish to see him immediately on urgent business."
The two men stepped into the smoking-room, which was still dark with
the blinds down and rank with last night's tobacco smoke.
A few minutes later, the Governor entered in his dressing-gown over
his pyjamas and with his bare feet in his heelless slippers. And
then the Attorney told him--the young woman who was to have been
executed that morning had escaped.
"Good God, no!"
"Only too true, Sir. Colonel Farrell has had an urgent telegram from
his Inspector at Castletown."
"When did it happen?"
"During the night. The jailer says he locked her up at eleven and
when he opened the cell at five the prisoner was gone."
"Where is the jailer?"
"At the Castle still," said the Chief Constable, "but I've told the
police to send him up immediately."
The Governor rose from the seat into which he had dropped and walked
to and fro.
"Such a blow to the authority of the law--the escape of a prisoner on
the eve of her execution!" said the Attorney.
"Such a handle to the disorderly elements, too!" said the Chief
Constable.
"Good Lord, don't I know? Let me think! Let me think!"
The Governor drew up one of the window blinds and his eyes fell on a
steamer lying by the pier with smoke rising lazily from her black and
red funnels.
"If the woman escaped only a few hours ago," he said, "she cannot
have left the island yet. Have you given orders that the passengers
by the morning steamer shall be watched?"
"Not yet, sir."
"Do so at once. If that fails, telegraph to your police in every
town and parish. Good gracious, in this pocket-handkerchief of an
island it ought to be possible to re-capture an escaped prisoner in a
day, even if she lies like a toad under a stone."
"We'll leave no stone unturned, sir."
"A woman! A mere girl! Unless the jailer or his people deliberately
opened the doors for her she must have had assistance."
"That's what _I_ say, your Excellency."
"Have you any idea who helped her?"
"No .... that is to say...."
"Where's young Gell, the Advocate?"
"In his rooms in Athol-street .... I presume."
"Find out for certain. Come back at four this afternoon and bring
that blockhead of a jailer with you. And listen" (the men were
leaving the room), "try to keep this ridiculous thing quiet. If it
gets into the papers across the water all England will be laughing at
us."
The Governor was again at the window, watching the Attorney-General's
carriage going rapidly down the drive, when he saw a hackney car,
containing Fenella, coming up to the house.
That sight started a new order of ideas. He remembered Stowell's
threat--"If you order that girl's execution, it shall never be
carried out, because I shall prevent it." For three days he had
understood this to mean that the Deemster would appeal over his head
to the Imperial authorities. But Stowell had not done so--he wasn't
such a fool, he had remembered the bedevilments of his own position.
So the Governor had dismissed the thought, and his anger at the son
of his old friend had subsided. But now the threat came back on him
with a new interpretation. Could it be possible? Such an unheard-of
thing?
As soon as Fenella entered the house he called her into his room and
shut the door behind her.
"You have just come from Castletown?"
"Yes, father."
"Then you know what has happened?"
"Yes."
"Can you throw any light on it?"
"Light on it?"
"I mean .... have you seen anything of Stowell since we spoke of him
last?"
"Nothing."
"Nor heard from him?"
"No."
"Do you think it likely that .... But it is impossible. No
responsible person in his sense could do such a thing. It must be
the other one."
"What other, father?"
"Young Gell, of course. He is the only man in the island who could
wish that girl to escape--the only one who would be fool enough to
help her to do so."
Fenella went to her room with a heart at ease. She was sorry for
Gell, very sorry, but in the consuming selfishness of her love for
Stowell she found a secret joy in the thought that suspicion was
being diverted from the real culprit.
Victor was safe thus far. But what would he do himself? What was he
now doing?