He melted away into the darkness as he spoke, and through the night he
slipped, one shadow more amongst many, from tree to bush, from bush to
tree. Across a patch of open grass he crawled on his hands and knees;
and once lay flat on his face when against the skyline he saw a figure
he was sure was Deede Dawson's creep by a yard or two on his right hand.
On his left another shadow showed, distinguishable in the night only
because it moved.
In a moment both shadows were gone, secret and deadly in the dark,
and Dunn was very sure that Clive's life and his own both hung upon a
slender chance, for if either of them was discovered the leaping bullet
would do the rest.
It would be safe and easy--suspected burglars in a garden at
midnight--nothing could be said. He lay very still with his face to the
dewy sod, and all the night seemed full to him of searching footsteps
and of a swift and murderous going to and fro.
He heard distinctly from the road a sudden, muffled sound as Clive in
the darkness blunderingly missed his footing and fell upon one knee.
“That's finished him,” Dunn thought grimly, his ears straining for the
sharp pistol report that would tell Clive's tale was done, and then he
was aware of a cat, a favourite of Ella's and often petted by himself,
that was crouching near by under a tree, most likely much puzzled
and alarmed by this sudden irruption of hurrying men into its domain.
Instantly Dunn saw his chance, and seizing the animal, lifted it and
threw it in the direction where he guessed Deede Dawson to be.
His guess was good and fortune served him well, for the tabby flying
caterwauling through the air alighted almost exactly in front of Deede
Dawson on top of a small bush. For a moment it hung there, quite unhurt,
but very frightened, and emitted a yell, then fled.
In the quietness the tumult of its scrambling flight sounded
astonishingly loud, so that it sounded as through a miniature avalanche
had been let loose in the garden.
“Only cats,” Deede Dawson exclaimed disgustedly, and from behind, nearer
the house, Dunn called:
“Who's there? What is it? What's the matter? Is it Mr. Dawson? Is
anything wrong?”
“I think there is,” said Deede Dawson softly. “I think, perhaps, there
is. What are you doing out here at this time of night, Charley Wright?”
“I heard a noise and came down to see what it was,” answered Dunn.
“There was a light in the breakfast-room, but I didn't see any one, and
the front door was open so I came out here. Is anything wrong?”
“That's what I want to know,” said Deede Dawson. “Come back to the house
with me. If any one is about, he can just take himself off.”
He spoke the last sentence loudly, and Dunn took it as a veiled
instruction to his companion to depart.
He realized that if he had saved Clive he had done so at the cost of
missing the best opportunity that had yet come his way of obtaining very
important, and, perhaps, decisive information.
To have discovered the identity of this stranger who had come visiting
Deede Dawson might have meant much, and he told himself angrily that
Clive's safety had certainly not been worth purchasing at the cost of
such a lost chance, though he supposed that was a point on which Clive
himself might possibly entertain a different opinion.
But now there was nothing for it but to go quietly back to the house,
for clearly Deede Dawson's suspicions were aroused and he had his
revolver ready in his hand.
“I suppose it was only cats all the time,” he observed, with apparent
unconcern. “But at first I made sure there were no burglars in the
house.”
“And I suppose,” suggested Deede Dawson. “You think one burglar's enough
in a household.”
“I don't mean to have any one else mucking around,” growled Dunn in
answer.
“Very admirable sentiments,” said Deede Dawson and asked several more
questions that showed he still entertained some suspicion of Dunn, and
was not altogether satisfied that his appearance in the garden was quite
innocent, or that the noise heard there was due solely to cats.
Dunn answered as best he could, and Deede Dawson listened and smiled,
and smiled again, and watched him from eyes that did not smile at all.
“Oh, well,” Deede Dawson said at last, with a yawn. “Anyhow, it's all
right now. You had better get along back to bed, and I'll lock up.” He
accompanied Dunn into the hall and watched him ascend the stairs, and
as Dunn went slowly up them he felt by no means sure that soon a bullet
would not come questing after him, searching for heart or brain.
For he was sure that Deede Dawson still suspected him, and he knew Deede
Dawson to be very sudden and swift in action. But nothing happened, he
reached the broad, first landing in safety, and he was about to go on up
to his attic when he beard a door at the end of the passage open and saw
Ella appear in her dressing-gown.
“What is the matter?” she asked, in a low voice.
“It's all right,” he answered. “There was a noise in the garden, and I
came down to see what it was, but it's only cats.”
“Oh, is that all?” she said distrustfully.
“Yes,” he answered, in a lower voice still, he said:
“Will you tell me something? Do you know any one who talks in a very
peculiar shrill high voice?”
She did not answer, and, after a moment's hesitation, went back into her
room and closed the door behind her.
He went on up to his attic with the feeling that she could have answered
if she had wished to, and lay down in a troubled and dispirited mood.
For he was sure now that Ella mistrusted him and would give him
no assistance, and that weighed upon him greatly, as did also his
conviction that what it behoved him above all else to know--the identity
of the man who, in this affair, stood behind Deede Dawson and made use
of his fierce and fatal energies--he had had it in his power to discover
and had failed to make use of the opportunity.
“I would rather know that,” he said to himself, “than save a dozen
Clives ten times over.” Though again it occurred to him that on this
point Clive might hold another opinion. “If he hadn't made such a
blundering row I might have got to know who Deede Dawson's visitor was.
I must try to get a word with Clive tomorrow by hook or crook, though I
daresay Deede Dawson will be very much on the lookout.”
However, next morning Deede Dawson not only made no reference to the
events of the night, but had out the car and went off immediately after
breakfast without saying when he would be back.
As soon after his departure as possible, Dunn also set out and took
his way through the woods towards Ramsdon Place on the look-out for an
opportunity to speak to Clive unobserved.
He thought it most likely that Clive would be drawn towards the vicinity
of Bittermeads by the double fascination of curiosity and fear, and he
supposed that if he waited and watched in the woods he would be sure
presently to see him.
But though he remained for long hidden at a spot whence he could command
the road to Bittermeads from Ramsdon Place, he saw nothing at all of
Clive, and the sunny lazy morning was well advanced when he was startled
by the sound of a gun shot some distance away.
“A keeper shooting rabbits, I suppose,” he thought, looking round just
in time to see Ella running through the wood from the direction whence
the sound of the shot had seemed to come, and then vanish again with a
quick look behind her into the heart of a close-growing spinney.