"Things do be happening round about here, for sure," Mr. Pank remarked,
as he moved down the whisky bottle from its shelf. "What it all may lead
to is more than a body can say, but I don't like the look of it, Mr.
Craske."
The grocer added less than his usual modicum of water to his whisky. His
aspect was gloomy. So also were the aspects of Mr. Franks, the butcher,
who had strolled across for news, and Walter Beavens, the wheelwright,
who had come on a similar errand.
"It's almost as bad," Mr. Craske declared, "as the week after the
murder. Every one went about then, as it were, on tiptoe. Now this
burglary, taken by itself, ain't anything to make special mention of.
Why, Mr. Johnson himself, he was in the morning after it happened, and
he treated it mostly as a joke."
"It's my belief," Mr. Pank pronounced, "that there's something more
serious brewing. There's Inspector Cloutson come to stop in the village.
There's Major Holmes, the Chief Constable, up and down from the Hall all
day. There's Mr. Johnson, he don't come near any more. Mr. Fielding--him
we took for a schoolmaster and whom they do say was a kind of
detective--he ain't been in. And Mr. Rawson--why, no one ain't seen him
for four days. We shall have news before long, and bad news, I'm afraid
it may be."
"There's wild talk going about," Mr. Craske sighed, "and what it may
mean, no one can say for sure, but what I do say is, reason is reason,
and is it likely that any one here could have a grudge against a poor
old harmless fellow like Mr. Endacott? All this talk of Images and
Chinese documents and suchlike seems as though it had come out of the
pages of one of these serial novels as folks read in the newspapers. I
don't take no stock of such stuff."
Mr. Franks pushed his tankard across to be refilled.
"There's one bit of bad news, at any rate, may be sprung upon us at any
moment," he said. "They do say that every servant in the Hall had a
month's notice yesterday. I heard that from Miss Shane, the
housekeeper's niece."
The landlord shook his head gloomily.
"Things do seem to be pointing that way," he admitted, "and Mr. Rawson
keeping away and all. If so be that it's true, it will be a sad loss.
The Squire be a proud man in his way, but he be a true gentleman, and so
be Mr. Henry, and a more popular young gent than Mr. Gregory has never
been known in the county. It's a wonderful property to have to give up."
"We'll get some one here, I suppose," Mr. Craske predicted
pessimistically, "who's made pots of money by being careful, and goes on
saving pots the same way. Some of those big houses, the way they do go
through their books and talk about the Stores to you! Why, here's Mr.
Rawson."
The butler entered, solemn, ponderous and dignified as ever. He raised
his black bowler hat in acknowledgment of the greetings which assailed
him from all sides and sank slowly into a chair.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said. "Mr. Pank, I'll take double my
usual quantity of Scotch whisky."
"With me, Mr. Rawson," the grocer insisted. "We've missed you the last
few days."
Rawson sighed.
"I felt too worried in my mind for company," he confessed. "It's no
secret to you all, so why should I act mysterious about it. There's
skeery doings at the Hall."
There was a little rustle of interest. Rawson, disposed for gossip,
waited until his drink was placed in his hand and solemnly pledged its
donor.
"To begin with," he confided, "it's no secret now that we're in trouble.
We may have acted foolish," he went on. "Nothing, of course, can be said
for seventy thousand pounds lost at Newmarket, and a trifle more than
that last year. Foolish we may have been, but the gentry have always had
their weaknesses. The hounds have cost us a cool eight thousand a year
for the last five years, and subscriptions getting less all the time.
Then the taxes. It seems whatever sort of government we get these days
they want your money--fingers all itching for it. Get you all ways!
Income Tax and Land Tax--why, it's a wonder they don't grab the breath
out of your body. It's the first time such a thing's happened to me in
my career, but last night--you'll believe me, gentlemen--I had my
notice."
There was a murmur of sympathy. Rawson raised his glass and drank.
"It was Mr. Henry, as usual, who had to tackle the job," he continued.
"He sent for us one by one to his study, where he sat as prim and formal
as ever, with all his catalogues around and his books of reference.
'Rawson,' he said, 'you have been an excellent servant, but conditions
render it necessary for my brother and me to close this house for the
present. We are, in fact, ceasing to keep an establishment. I am
compelled, therefore, to ask you to accept a month's notice.' All very
proper and regular, gentlemen, but I could see that Mr. Henry were
feeling it. Mrs. Shane came out all crying. I seen him afterwards,
though, and he were just the same as usual, except that his face were as
white as parchment."
"It do be a sad loss for all," Mr. Pank declared. "There's no word of
anything but good in these parts for any of them--for the Squire, or Mr.
Henry, or Mr. Gregory either."
"As though this weren't trouble enough," Rawson proceeded portentously,
"there's all sorts of mysterious doings and rumours afloat, about enough
to drive a body crazy. You mind the young man Fielding, who called
himself a retired schoolmaster and sat in the corner pretending to make
flies?"
"The hypocrite!" Mr. Craske exclaimed.
"A detective, that's what he was," Rawson went on. "Not a police
detective, you understand, but one of them that goes about spying for a
living. Now he is up and swore that the night of the burglary he seen
some one leave the Hall by the oak library, which is Mr. Gregory's
private way almost, twenty minutes or half an hour before the burglary
were committed."
There was a little buzz of exclamations and remarks, a general feeling
of indignation against the pseudo-schoolmaster.
"If he were one of these paid spies," Mr. Craske enquired, "who were
paying him?"
"That I can't say for sure," the butler acknowledged, "but I have my
suspicions--very grave suspicions too."
"And whom might you be fancying to be the man, Mr. Rawson?" one of the
little group asked.
"Him as has taken the Great House--Mr. Johnson, by name," was the
injured reply. "We've had him up to lunch too, and treated him, as it
were, beyond his station. I'm glad to find he's not here to-day,
gentlemen. There's a word or two I might have had to say to him."
"It do seem most mysterious," the innkeeper declared. "What do you
suppose this Mr. Johnson has got to do with it all, Mr. Rawson, that
he's putting his oar in?"
"Mr. Johnson," the butler announced, "has come to these parts under
false pretences. There's many has wondered why he settled here and many
asked him the question, and all the time he answered innocent like that
he just wanted the country and the house suited him, and so on. Do you
mind--all on you--when he pretended to be surprised about the murder? He
knew about it all the time. He was Mr. Endacott's partner out somewhere
in foreign parts, and he settled down here in a mischievous kind of way
to make trouble and disturbance amongst his betters."
"Well, I never!" Mr. Pank exclaimed. "A pleasanter-spoken body never
came in the place or a more harmless looking. There's nothing fresh, is
there, Mr. Rawson, about the murder?"
"God knows!" was the butler's ponderous pronouncement. "There's strange
things all around us, and what they may mean or where they may lead to
we none of us can tell, at this present moment."
"There is Mr. Johnson," the grocer exclaimed, looking out over the
muslin blinds, "and Inspector Cloutson with him. Look at 'em walking
together, so confidential like."
"I'd like to know what they're saying," Mr. Craske confessed. "Heads
almost touching, as you might say. And did you see the Inspector turn
around and look across towards the Hall?"
The two men halted outside the postern gate. Presently they separated,
and, with a brief nod, Mr. Johnson entered his own domain, whilst
Inspector Cloutson turned and made his way back towards the police
station. The little company watched Mr. Johnson's retiring figure as
they had once watched his progress down the village street on the day of
his first visit.
"In my opinion," Rawson declared emphatically, "that's the man who's
brought most of the mischief into this neighbourhood. I'm not one to
wish any of my neighbours harm, but if the chap who broke into the Great
House the other night had been of my way of thinking, he'd have given
him one which would have kept him quiet for a bit longer than this."
* * * * *
Mr. Johnson moved rather wearily to his favourite seat under the cedar
tree, and sat there for several minutes in tired contemplation. He awoke
from a fit of brooding to find Katherine Besant crossing the lawn
towards him. She was bareheaded and it was obvious that she had been
running. He rose to his feet..
"Come and sit down," he begged.
"I can't stop," she answered. "I just came in. I wanted to have a word
or two with you."
He took her hands in his and looked at her steadily. She was a little
flushed with her hurrying, but it struck him that her hair was more
carefully arranged and that her linen frock, simple though its fashion,
was becoming. The slight eagerness in her manner, communicated also to
her expression, gave her an air of greater life and vivacity.
"Mr. Johnson," she exclaimed, "I really can't stop. I don't know when
Madame may want me. But what does it all mean? Every one seems wildly
unhappy, and it all seems to centre round you. What are you doing to
everybody? You were so kind to me."
"My dear," he replied gently, "it would take a long time to explain.
Very soon you will know everything."
"But the everything that I am to know seems as though it were going to
be horrible!" she cried. "Madame looks as if she were about to die every
moment. Sir Bertram rode away from seeing her this morning looking like
a ghost. They say that Mr. Gregory left last night for abroad. Miss
Endacott sent three notes to him yesterday. I know that she wanted him
to come to see her. He wouldn't. And the place seems full--full of
phosphorescence. It's like a pause before a thunder storm. No one seems
to know quite what to expect. Is it you who have been stirring up all
this trouble?"
He shook his head.
"The trouble, such as it is," he assured her solemnly, "was caused by
those who must suffer for it."
"Who are they?" she demanded.
He pointed over his shoulder towards the Hall.
"The Ballastons," he answered.
"But what have they done?"
He shook his head.
"Don't ask me too much," he begged. "It's an ugly story, and you'll know
it soon enough. Only, believe me, it isn't I who am bringing it all
about."
"But you could stop it," she expostulated.
"Nothing in the world could stop it," he answered. "I don't look like a
superstitious man, do I, Miss Besant?"
"I shouldn't have said so," she admitted.
"I have this belief, though," he went on, "which you may call
superstitious, or you may not. There are some things which a man who
meddles with must suffer for. I have seen it in my younger days in
Egypt, and I have seen it also in China. I have seen a man who posed as
a great savant and Egyptologist destroy a sacred tomb. The newspapers of
the world were filled with accounts of the treasure he discovered. He
died within a few months, and to this day no one knows how. And then
tell me this, by what right does a young man like Gregory Ballaston,
simply because he has courage and enterprise, and because he is faced
with ruin, dare to come out to a strange country, break into a sacred
temple and rob it? Well, he found no treasure, but for the evil which
has come because of his wrong-doing, you must not blame me who point the
finger to his guilt. You must blame something which neither you nor I
fully understand, but which is working for a punishment just as surely."
"But you don't think," she faltered, "you can't believe, that Gregory
Ballaston killed Mr. Endacott."
"The law will have to decide that," he answered gravely.
She sat for several moments, pensive and still. Then she rose to her
feet.
"I think it is all very horrible," she sighed.
"Life has its grim and terrible side," he declared, "but underlying it
all there is a sense of justice which has made us humans frame laws and
institute a code of punishment. The instinct to do this and abide by the
results is a part of nature itself. No one really escapes the
consequences of ill-doing. Will you promise me one thing, Miss Besant?"
She had been in the act of turning away. She paused.
"Everything may be changed here in a few days," he went on, "and, of
course, I may be pretty unpopular. Will you promise me that you will not
go away without seeing me?"
She hesitated for a moment. Then she gave him her hand quickly. To his
surprise there were tears in her eyes.
"I promise," she said. "You have been kind to me, at any rate. You are
the first person who has been really kind to me for years."
She moved away too quickly for him to detain her. Mr. Johnson returned
slowly to the house, over which the shadow of tragedy seemed once more
to be brooding.