THE BOLT FALLS.
All the way home on that long journey from Cape Town, as the two
half-brothers lounged on deck together in their canvas chairs,
Granville Kelmscott was wholly at a loss to understand what seemed
to him Guy Waring's unaccountable and almost incredible levity. The
man's conduct didn't in the least resemble that of a person who is
returning to give himself up on a charge of wilful murder. On the
contrary, Guy showed no signs of remorse or mental agony in any way;
he seemed rather elated, instead, at the pleasing thought that he
was going home, with his diamonds all turned at the Cape into solid
coin, to make his peace once more with his brother Cyril.
To be sure, at times he did casually allude to some expected
unpleasantness when he arrived in England; yet he treated it,
Granville noticed, as though hanging were at worst but a temporary
inconvenience. Granville wondered whether, after all, he could
have some complete and crushing answer to that appalling charge; on
any other supposition, his spirits and his talk were really little
short of what one might expect from a madman.
And indeed, now and again, Granville did really begin to suspect
that something had gone wrong somewhere with Guy Waring's intellect.
The more he thought over it, the more likely did this seem, for
Guy talked on with the greatest composure about his plans for the
future "when this difficulty was cleared up," as though a trial
for murder were a most ordinary occurrence--an accident that might
happen to any gentleman any day. And, if so, was it possible that
Guy had gone wrong in his head BEFORE the affray with Montague
Nevitt? That seemed likely enough; for when Granville remembered
Guy's invariable gentleness and kindness to himself, his devotion
in sickness and in the trials of the desert, his obvious aversion
to do harm to any one, and, above all, his heartfelt objection
to shedding human blood, Granville was constrained to believe his
newly found half-brother, if ever he committed the murder at all,
must have committed it while in a state of unsound mind, deserving
rather of pity than of moral reprehension. He comforted himself,
indeed, with this consoling idea--he could never believe a Kelmscott
of Tilgate, when clothed and in his right mind, could be guilty
of such a detestable and motiveless crime as the wilful murder of
Montague Nevitt.
Strangely enough, moreover, the subject that seemed most to occupy
Guy Waring's mind, on the voyage home, was not his forthcoming trial
on a capital charge, but the future distribution of the Tilgate
property. Was he essentially a money-grubber, Granville wondered
to himself, as he had thought him at first in the diamond fields
in Barolong land? Was he incapable of thinking about anything but
filthy lucre? No; that was clearly not the true solution of the
problem, for, whenever Guy spoke to him about the subject, it was
generally to say one and the self-same thing--
"In this matter, I feel I can speak for Cyril as I speak for myself.
Neither of us would wish to deprive you now of what you've always
been brought up to consider as your own. Neither of us would wish
to dispossess Lady Emily. The most we would desire is this--to have
our position openly acknowledged and settled before the world. We
should like it to be known we were the lawful sons of a brave man
and an honest woman. And if you wish voluntarily to share with us
some part of our father's estate, we'll be willing to enter into
a reasonable arrangement by which yon yourself can retain Tilgate
Park and the mass of the property that immediately appertains to
it. I'm sure Cyril would no more wish to be grasping in this matter
than I am; and after all that you and I have gone through together,
Granville, I don't think yon need doubt the sincerity of my feelings
towards you."
He spoke so sensibly, he spoke so manfully, he spoke so kindly
always, with a bright gleam in those tender eyes, that Granville
hardly knew what to make of his evident confidence. Surely a
man couldn't be mad who could speak like that; and yet, whenever
he alluded in any way to his return to England, it was always as
though he ignored the gravity and heinousness of the charge brought
against him. It was as though murder was an accident, for which one
was hardly responsible. Granville couldn't make him out at all;
the fellow was an enigma to him. There was so much that was good
in him; and yet, there must be so much that was bad as well. He was
such a delicate, considerate, self-effacing gentleman--and yet,
if one could believe what he himself more than once as good as
admitted, he was a criminal, a felon, an open murderer.
Still, even so, Granville couldn't turn his back upon the brother
who had seen him so bravely across the terrors of Namaqua land. He
thought of how he had misjudged him once before, and how much he
had repented it. Whether Guy was a murderer or not, Granville felt,
the man he had saved, at least, could never forsake him.
The night before their arrival at Plymouth, Guy was in unusually
high spirits. His mirth was contagious. Everybody on board
was delighted at the prospect of reaching land, but Guy was more
delighted and more sanguine than anybody. He was sure in his own
mind this difficulty must have blown over long before now; Cyril must
have explained; Nevitt must have confessed; everything must have
been set right, and his own good name satisfactorily rehabilitated.
For more than eighteen months he had heard nothing from England.
To-morrow he would see Cyril, and account for everything. He had
money to set all right--his hard-earned money, got at the risk
of his own life in the dreary deserts of Barolong land. All would
yet be well, and Cyril would marry, and Elma Clifford would be the
mistress of nearly half the Tilgate property.
"It was all so different, Granville," he said to his friend
confidentially, as they paced the deck after supper, cigar in
mouth, "when you first went out, and we didn't know one another.
Then, I distrusted you, and you distrusted me. We didn't understand
one another's characters. But now we can settle it all as a family
affair. Men who have camped out together under the open sky on the
African veldt, who have run the gauntlet of Korannas and Barolong
and Namaqua, who have stood by one another in sickness and in
fight, needn't be afraid of disagreeing about their money matters
in England. Cyril will meet us to-morrow and talk it all over,
and I'm not the least troubled about the result, either for you or
for him. The same blood runs in all our veins alike. Whatever you
propose, he'll be ready to agree to. He's the very best fellow
that ever lived, and when he hears what I have to say about you,
he'll welcome you as a brother, and be as fond of you as I am."
Next morning early they reached Plymouth Harbour. As they entered
the mouth of the breakwater, the tender came alongside to convey
them ashore. Guy looked over the bulwarks and saw Cyril waiting
for him. In a fervour of delight at the sight of the green fields
and the soft hills of old England--the beautiful Hoe, and the solid
stone houses, and the familiar face turned up to welcome him--Guy
waved his handkerchief round and round his head in triumph; to
which demonstration Cyril, as he fancied, responded but coldly. A
chill fell upon his heart. This was bad, but still, after all, he
could hardly expect Cyril to know intuitively under what sinister
influence he had signed that fatal cheque. And yet he was disappointed.
His heart had jumped so hard at sight of Cyril, he could hardly
believe Cyril wasn't glad to see him.
As he stepped into the tender from the gangway, just ready to rush
up and shake Cyril's hand fervently, a resolute-looking man by the
side of the steps laid a very firm grip on his shoulder with an
air of authority.
"Guy Waring?" he said interrogatively.
And Guy, turning pale, answered without flinching--
"Yes, my name's Guy Waring."
"Then you're my prisoner," the man said, in a very firm voice. "I'm
an inspector of constabulary."
"On what charge?" Guy exclaimed, half taken aback at this promptitude.
"I have a warrant against you, sir," the inspector answered, "as
you are no doubt aware, for the wilful murder of Montague Nevitt,
on the 17th of August, year before last, at Mambury, in Devonshire."
The word's fell upon Guy's ears with all the suddenness and crushing
force of an unexpected thunderbolt.
"Wilful murder," he cried, taken aback by the charge. "Wilful
murder of Montague Nevitt at Mambury! Oh no, you can't mean that!
Montague Nevitt dead! Montague Nevitt murdered! And at Mambury,
too! There MUST be some mistake somewhere."
"No, there's no mistake at all, this time," the inspector said
quietly, slipping a pair of handcuffs unobtrusively into his pocket
as he spoke. "If you come along with me without any unnecessary
noise, we won't trouble to iron you. But you'd better say as little
as possible about the charge just now, for whatever you say may
be used in evidence at the trial against you."
Guy turned to Cyril with an appealing look. "Cyril," he, cried,
"what does all this mean? Is Nevitt dead? It's the very first word
I've ever heard about it."
Cyril's heart gave a bound of wild relief at those words. The moment
Guy said it his brother knew he spoke the simple truth.
"Why, Guy," he answered, with a fierce burst of joy, "then you're
not a murderer after all? You're innocent! You're innocent! And
for eighteen months all England has thought you guilty; and I've
lived under the burden of being universally considered a murderer's
brother!"
Guy looked him back in the face with those truthful grey eyes of
his.
"Cyril," he said solemnly, "I'm as innocent of this charge as you
or Granville Kelmscott here. I never even heard one whisper of it
before. I don't know what it means. I don't know who they want. Till
this moment I thought Montague Nevitt was still alive in England."
And as he said it, Granville Kelmscott, too, saw he was speaking
the truth. Impossible as he found it in his own mind to reconcile
those strange words with all that Guy had said to him in the wilds
of Namaqua land, he couldn't look him in the face without seeing
at a glance how profound and unexpected was this sudden surprise
to him. He was right in saying, "I'm as innocent of this charge as
you or Granville Kelmscott."
But the inspector only smiled a cynical smile, and answered calmly--
"That's for the jury to decide. We shall hear more of this then.
You'll be tried at the assizes. Meanwhile, the less said, the
sooner mended."