He turned quickly towards Deede Dawson. Their eyes met, and in that
mutual glance Rupert Dunsmore read that his suspicions were correct and
Deede Dawson that his dreadful trap was discovered.
Neither spoke. For a brief moment they remained impassive, immobile,
their eyes meeting like blows, and then Deede Dawson made one spring to
seize again the revolver he had laid down in the hope of enticing Rupert
into the awful snare prepared for him.
But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawson
leaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at the
man, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet where
Deede Dawson had placed it.
The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the weapon
fair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor. Deede Dawson,
whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it, drew back with
a snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf than any sound
produced from human lips.
Still, Rupert did not speak. With the smoking pistol in his hand he
watched silently and steadily his helpless enemy who, for his part, was
silent, too, and very still, for he felt that doom was close upon him.
Yet he showed not the least sign of fear, but only a fierce and sullen
defiance.
“Shoot away, why don't you shoot?” he sneered. “Mind you don't miss. I
trusted you when I put my revolver down and I was a fool, but I thought
you would play fair.”
Without a word Rupert tossed his pistol through the attic window.
They heard the tinkling fall of the glass, they heard more faintly the
sound of the revolver striking the outhouse roof twenty feet below and
rebounding thence to the paved kitchen yard beneath, and then all was
quiet again.
“I only need my hands for you,” said Rupert softly, as softly as a
mother coos to her drowsy babe. “My hands for you.”
For the first time Deede Dawson seemed to fear, for, indeed, there was
that in Rupert Dunsmore's eyes to rouse fear in any man. With a sudden
swift spring, Rupert leaped forward and Deede Dawson, not daring to
abide that onslaught, turned and ran, screaming shrilly.
During the space of one brief moment, a dreadful and appalling moment,
there was a wild strange hunting up and down the narrow space of that
upper attic, cumbered with lumber and old, disused furniture.
Round and round Deede Dawson fled, screaming still in a high shrill way,
like some wild thing in pain, and hard upon him followed Rupert, nor had
they gone a second time about that room before Rupert had Deede Dawson
in a fast embrace, his arms about the other's middle.
One last great cry Deede Dawson gave when Rupert seized him, and then
was silent as Rupert lifted him and swung him high at arm's length.
As a child in play sports with its doll, so Rupert swung Deede Dawson
twice about his head, round and round and then loosed him so that he
went hurling through the air with awful force, like a stone shot from a
catapult, clean through the window through which Rupert had the moment
before tossed his pistol with but little more apparent effort.
Right through the window, bearing panes and sash with him, Deede Dawson
flew with the impetus of that great throw and out beyond and down,
turning over and over the while, down through the empty air to fall and
be shattered like a piece of worthless crockery on the stone threshold
of the outhouse door.
Surprised to find himself alone, Rupert put his hand to his forehead and
looked vacantly around.
“My God, what have I done?” he thought.
He was trembling violently, and the fury of the passion that had
possessed him and had given his mighty muscles a force more than human,
was still upon him.
Going to the window, he looked out, for he did not quite know what had
happened and from it he looked back at the wardrobe door.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes.”
He ran to it and tore open the door and from within very tenderly and
gently he lifted down the half-swooning Ella who, securely gagged and
tightly bound, had been thrust into its interior to conceal her from
him.
Hurriedly he freed her from her bonds and from the handkerchief that was
tied over her mouth and holding her in his arms like a child, pressing
her close to his heart, he carried her lightly out of that dreadful
room.
Only once did she stir, only once did she speak, when lifting her pale,
strained face to him she murmured very faintly something in which he
just caught the words:
“Deede Dawson.”
“He'll trouble us no more nor any one else, I think,” answered Rupert,
and she said no more but snuggled down in his arms as though with a
feeling of perfect security and safety.
He took her to her own room and left her with her mother, and then went
down to the hall and took a chair and sat at the front door.
All at once he felt very tired and one of his shoulders hurt him, for he
had strained a muscle there rather badly.
His one desire was to rest, and he did not even trouble to go round to
the back of the house to see what had happened to Deede Dawson, though
indeed that was not a point on which he entertained much doubt.
For a long time he sat there quietly, till at last his father arrived in
a motor-car from Wreste Abbey, together with a police-inspector from the
county town whom he had picked up on the way.
Rupert took them into the room where Deede Dawson's chessmen and the
board were still standing and told them as briefly as he could what had
happened since the first day when he had left his home to try to trace
out and defeat the plot hatched by Walter Dunsmore and Deede Dawson.
“You people wouldn't act,” he said to the inspector. “You said there
was no evidence, no proof, and I daresay you were right enough from the
legal point of view. But it was plain enough to me that there was
some sort of conspiracy against my uncle's life, I thought against my
father's as well, but I was not sure of that at first. It was through
poor Charley Wright I became so certain. He found out things and told me
about them; but for him the first attempt to poison my uncle would have
succeeded. Even then we had still no evidence to prove the reality of
our suspicions, for Walter destroyed it, by accident, I thought at the
time, purposely, as I know now. It was something Walter said that gave
Charley the idea of coming here. Then he vanished. He must have roused
their suspicions somehow, and they killed him. But again Walter put us
all off the scent by his story of having seen Charley in London, so that
it was there the search for him was made, and no one ever thought of
Bittermeads. I never suspected Walter, such an idea never entered my
head; but luckily I didn't tell him of my idea of coming to Bittermeads
myself to try to find out what was really going on here. He knew nothing
of where I was till I told him that day at Wreste Abbey, then of course
he came over here at once. I thought it was anxiety for my safety, but I
expect really it was to warn his friends. When I saw him here that night
I told him every single thing, I trusted the carrying-out of everything
I had arranged to him. If it hadn't been for a note Miss Cayley wrote
me to warn me, I should have walked right into the trap and so would my
father too.”
The police-inspector asked a few questions and then made a search of the
room which resulted in the discovery of quite sufficient proof of the
guilt of Deede Dawson and of Walter Dunsmore.
Among these proofs was also a hastily-scribbled note from Walter that
solved the mystery of John Clive's death. It was not signed, but both
General Dunsmore and Rupert knew his writing and were prepared to swear
to it. Beginning abruptly and scribbled on a torn scrap of paper, it
ran:
“I found Clive where you said, lucky you got hold of the note and read
it before she sent it, for no doubt she meant to warn him. Take care she
gets no chance of the sort again. I did Clive's business all right.
She saw me and I think recognized me from that time she saw me over the
packing-case business, before I took it out to sink it at sea. At any
rate, she ran off in a great hurry. If you aren't careful, she'll make
trouble yet.”
“Apparently,” remarked the inspector when he had read this aloud, “the
young lady was very luckily not watched closely enough and did make
trouble for them. Could I see her, do you think?”
“I don't know, I'll go and ask,” Rupert said.
Ella was still very shaken, but she consented to see the inspector, and
they all went together to her room where she was lying on her bed with
her mother fussing nervously about her.
She told them in as few words as possible the story of how she had
always disliked and mistrusted the man whom so unfortunately her mother
had married, and how gradually her suspicions strengthened till she
became certain that he was involved in many unlawful deeds.
But always her inner certainty had fallen short of absolute proof, so
careful had he been in all he did.
“I knew I knew,” she said. “But there was nothing I really knew. And
he made me do all sorts of things for him. I wouldn't have cared for
myself, but if I tried to refuse he made mother suffer. She was very,
very frightened of him, but she would never leave him. She didn't dare.
There was one night he made me go very late with a packing-case full of
silver things he had, and he wouldn't tell me where he had got them. I
believe he stole them all, but I helped him pack them, and I took them
away the night Mr. Dunsmore came and gave them to a man wearing a mask.
My stepfather said it was just a secret family matter he was helping
some friends in, and later on I saw the same man in the woods near here
one day--the day Mr. Clive was killed by the poachers--and when he
came another time to the house I thought I must try to find out what he
wanted. I listened while they talked and they said such strange things
I made up my mind to try to warn Mr. Dunsmore, for I was sure there was
something they were plotting.”
“There was indeed,” said Rupert grimly. “And but for that warning you
sent me they would have succeeded.”
“Somehow they found out what I had done,” Ella continued. “As soon as
I got back he kept looking at me so strangely. I was afraid--I had been
afraid a long time, for that matter--but I tried not to show it. In the
afternoon he told me to go up to the attic. He said he wanted me to help
him pack some silver. It was the same silver I had packed before; for
some reason he had got it back again. This time I had to pack it in the
little boxes, and after I had finished I waited up there till suddenly
he ran in very quickly and looking very excited. He said I had betrayed
them, and should suffer for it, and he took some rope and he tied me as
tightly as he could, and tied a great handkerchief over my mouth, and
pushed me inside the wardrobe and locked it. I think he would have
killed me then only he was afraid of Mr. Dunsmore, and very anxious to
know what had happened, and why Mr. Dunsmore had come home, and if there
was any danger. And I was a long time there, and I heard a great noise,
and then Mr. Dunsmore opened the door and took me out.”