AN AWKWARD POSITION
The appearance and accusation of Bella were so unexpected that Mrs. Vand
and her husband became perfectly white, and obvious fear robbed them of
all powers of movement. Granny Tunks sat up, rubbed her eyes, and stared
at Bella with the open panel behind her in great surprise.
"Where have you come from, deary?" she asked, rising unsteadily.
"Never mind," said Bella, with her eyes on the guilty faces of the
married couple. "It is enough that I am here to accuse these two of
murder."
Mrs. Tunks uttered a screech. "What are you talking about, lovey? This
good gentleman and kind lady have murdered no one."
Bella glanced at her in a puzzled way. "You declared that Henry Vand
murdered my father," she remarked quietly, and keeping up the fiction of
her being Huxham's daughter; "you said that a cripple----"
"Me!" screeched Granny again. "I never said such a thing."
"Of course not," chimed in Vand, who was the first to recover his powers
of speech. "It's all nonsense."
"Your face showed that it was the truth just now," said Bella sharply,
"when Mrs. Tunks talked in her sleep."
"Sleep? No lovey, no sleep. I sent my spirit away to learn things. What
did I say? Tell me, my good gentleman, what did I say?"
"I don't remember. I forgot," said Vand striving to appear cool.
"I don't forget," cried Bella indignantly, "she spoke of the jewels and
of my father's murder. How did you find out?" she asked Granny Tunks,
who dropped into her chair and seemed to shrink. "How did you learn
about the jewels and Maxwell Faith?"
"I never heard the name. I never knew there were any jewels," murmured
the witch-wife. "I never said anything about murder. When I came back to
my body I never remember anything. No, no, no! The spirit is stronger
than the flesh and jealous of its secrets," and she went on murmuring
and maundering like one in her dotage. Yet Bella knew well, that in
spite of her age, Granny Tunks was very far from being intellectually
weak.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Vand, who had sunk into a chair, had gradually recovered
her colour and wits. "You are the ghost!" she said suddenly to Bella.
In spite of the strained situation, the girl laughed, though not very
mirthfully. "Yes, I am the ghost!" she acknowledged. "It was I who
sighed and rapped and rustled my skirts so as to drive you and Sarah out
of the room."
"How dare you! how dare you!" shouted Mrs. Vand, rising wrathfully.
"What do you mean by entering my house, and how did you get in."
"I got in by a way of which you know nothing," said Bella coolly, "and I
am not going to reveal my secret. But I know this house better than you,
Aunt Rosamund"--she gave her the old familiar name--"and I know of many
secret passages. This,"--she touched the panel at her back--"is the
entrance to one of them. In the old days many a conspirator concealed
himself here. I have used the hiding-place to learn your secret."
"How dare you! how dare you!" blustered Mrs. Vand, and would have gone
on abusing Bella wrathfully but that her crafty husband interposed.
"Miss Huxham, you have behaved wrongly in entering the house in this
secret manner, seeing that I told you how welcome you were to come
openly. Both Rosamund and myself would have been glad to see you."
"Not me! not me!" vociferated Mrs. Vand, with a bright spot of angry red
on each cheek. "I always hated her, and I hate her more than ever."
"Hold your tongue," muttered her husband, and gave her plump arm such a
pinch that she leaped aside with a cry of pain. Taking no notice of her
distress he turned to Bella. "You should have come openly," he repeated.
"May I ask why you made use of the secret passages?"
"You may, and I am quite willing to answer. I came to find the
whereabouts of the jewels which belonged to my father."
"I know of no jewels," said Vand steadily; "do you, Rosamund?"
"No, I don't," returned Mrs. Vand aggressively. "There was the property
and the income, both of which Jabez left to me by arrangement. But
jewels? I never saw any; if I had I should have got hold of them, since
they are mine--if they exist, that is."
"Granny here said when she spoke that they existed," insisted Bella
quietly.
Mrs. Vand shrugged her fat shoulders. "I don't believe in hocus-pocus
and hanky-panky. Henry thought that the house was haunted, as I did
myself, and he brought Granny here to lay the ghost. She has done so,
since she brought you out to talk in a silly manner. You are the ghost,
Bella, so I don't believe that there are any such things as spirits."
"I don't believe in spirits either," said Bella promptly, "and so I wish
to know, Mrs. Tunks, how you learned all you said."
"All what?" mumbled the witch-wife vacantly.
"All about the jewels and the murder and the----"
"I don't remember saying a word," interrupted Granny, rising slowly and
with a lack-lustre look in her beady eyes. When I go into a trance I
don't recall what I say. But let me go into a trance again and I'll tell
you where the jewels are if you will give me a share," and her eyes
began to glitter in an avaricious manner.
"No," said Vand, in his most peremptory tones, "we have had enough of
this rubbish."
"Oh," sneered his wife, "you admit then that it is rubbish?"
"Yes, now that I know Miss Huxham played the ghost. Granny"--he turned
to the old woman--"all your teachings of the unseen have proved false,
so you can take yourself out of this house, and never come near it
again."
Bella, quite believing that the old woman was a fraud, and knew the
truth of what she had spoken when in her so-called trance, expected to
see her defy the man she had accused. But in place of doing so Granny
Tunks flung the tail of her white cloak over her head and moved towards
the door. Seeing her retreat, Mrs. Vand, after the manner of bullies and
cowards, became suddenly brave. Leaping towards the old creature, and
before her husband could restrain her, she struck her hard once or twice
between the shoulders. "Get out of this, you lying cat! Go to the devil,
your master, you vile animal!"
Vand caught back his infuriated wife with a fierce oath, but Granny
still continued on her way out of the room. As she passed into the dark
hall she turned and sent a glance at Mrs. Vand which made that
triumphant tyrant shiver in her shoes. But she did not defend herself in
any way, and shortly the three in the vast drawing-room heard the front
door open and shut. Granny Tunks was gone, and with her seemed to
disappear the malignant influence which had hung over the house for so
long. Bella did not believe in witchcraft, but she could not help
thinking that the old woman must have exercised some evil spell, and now
had departed taking her familiar with her. At all events, the air seemed
to be clearer for her absence.
"Now then," said Vand, addressing Bella in his usual courteous way, "as
you are satisfied, Miss Huxham, perhaps you will go also."
"No," said Bella determinedly. "I believe that Granny spoke truly, and
that you and my aunt have something to do with the murder."
"It's a lie!" shouted Mrs. Vand furiously, and would have struck her
niece, as she had struck Granny, but that Vand kept her back. "Why
should I murder my own dear brother?"
"To get the heritage you now enjoy," said Bella firmly. "I don't say you
actually murdered him, but----"
"I should think you didn't, indeed," raved Mrs. Vand, stamping in
impotent wrath. "You heard what I said at the inquest. What I said then
is true. I left this house at seven o'clock with Tunks, as he can prove.
I was all the evening with Henry, as he can swear to, and he left me on
the other side of the boundary channel. I came in quietly at ten and
went to bed. I never knew that Jabez was dead until the next morning,
and then I woke you. And as I was out of the house from seven until ten,
how could I have murdered my brother--your poor dead father--when the
doctor declared that he was struck down shortly after eight? How
dare----"
"You forget," interrupted Bella quickly, "that Dr. Ward said the murder
was committed between eight and eleven, so that gave you an hour to----"
"Grant me patience, heaven!" cried Mrs. Vand, casting up her eyes. "Why,
the coroner himself said that the poor dear must have been murdered
shortly after eight o'clock, since I came in at ten and saw no light in
the study."
"Ah," said Bella significantly, "he declared that on your evidence and
because he hated Dr. Ward, and wished to put him in the wrong."
"Then you accuse me of murder?"
"No; I accuse you of nothing."
"You say that I am guilty?" asked Vand, suddenly but quietly.
"I do not say so, but Granny Tunks did."
"If so, would she not have accused me to my face when I turned her out
of the house?" said Vand earnestly. "I assure you, Miss Huxham, that I
had no motive to kill your father. I was quite content to wait, even
though Rosamund and I were secretly married. Besides, on that night I
left Rosamund on the further side of the boundary channel, as she can
prove. Also my mother can show that I returned to my home at fifteen
minutes past ten, and that I was in bed by half-past. There is not a
shred of evidence to support this unfounded charge you have made."
"I did not make it Granny said----"
"I know what she said," interrupted Vand imperiously. "Hold your tongue,
Rosamund, and let me speak. Granny said what she did say in a trance. At
one time I really believed in such things; now, and especially since our
ghost has proved to be you, I have ceased to believe. You heard merely
the raving of an old beldame. I dare say she wished to blackmail myself
and Rosamund by bringing this unfounded charge, and chose this so-called
trance to bring the charge. If she really has any grounds to go
upon--and I swear that she has not--she will doubtless go to the police
to-morrow."
"And I hope she will go!" cried Mrs. Vand angrily, "for then Henry and I
can have her up for libel. No wonder everyone is so disagreeable!
Granny, no doubt, has been spreading all manner of reports against us. I
daresay we are regarded as a couple of criminal, gory, murdering
assassins," ended Mrs. Vand, with a fine choice of words.
Bella was puzzled. Like the Vands themselves, she did not believe in the
occult arts with which Granny Tunks was supposed to be familiar, and it
was not unlikely that the clever old woman intended to risk blackmail.
Certainly, if Mrs. Tunks could really prove the guilt of Vand, she would
not have retreated so easily when he ordered her out of the house, much
less would she have condoned the blow of Mrs. Vand. If Granny honestly
could prove her case, she was mistress of the situation; but as she had
slunk away so quietly, it seemed that she had merely spoken from
conjecture. Bella began to think she had been too precipitate in
revealing herself, as the Vands decidedly had right on their side.
"Yet, after all," she said reluctantly, "how did Granny come to know
about the jewels?"
"Jewels! Had Jabez really jewels?" asked Mrs. Vand avariciously.
"Yes," said Bella coldly. "I read some papers which proved that he had
jewels valued at forty thousand pounds."
"Where did you get those papers?"
"I refuse to tell you that," retorted the girl, anxious not to
incriminate Mrs. Tunks until she had interviewed her.
"You must tell!" yelled Mrs. Vand, her face on fire with rage and
expectation. "You've come in sneaking by these secret passages to steal.
Jabez never gave you any of his papers. They are mine, and if they tell
where the jewels are, you minx----"
"They don't tell where the jewels are," interrupted Bella, "but they
state how Captain Huxham murdered Maxwell Faith in Nigeria to get them."
"You talk of your dead father as Captain Huxham," said Mrs. Vand
sniffing.
Her husband made a gesture of silence. "Maxwell Faith was the name
mentioned by Granny in her trance, and she also spoke of this murder.
Did she see the papers?"
"Ah!" Bella was suddenly enlightened. Perhaps Granny had learned about
the jewels from the papers which had been taken from the carved chest in
the attic. But then in that first set of papers, as she thought, the
name of Maxwell Faith had not been mentioned. "Granny saw one set of
papers, but not the set I mean."
"Then there are other papers you have stolen," cried Mrs. Vand
furiously. "Upon my word, Bella, you are a fine thief and no mistake.
Give up those papers, so that we may learn where my jewels are."
"They are not your jewels, but mine," said Bella, stepping back into the
hollow left by the open panel, "and you shall not have them."
"Where are they? where are they?" cried Vand, becoming excited in his
turn.
"I wish I knew, but I don't. Captain Huxham had them, before he
died----"
"Then the assassin must have them."
"Yes. Perhaps you can tell me who is the assassin?"
"I can't say; you know as much as we do," said Vand coldly. "If I had
murdered the old man, as you were so ready to think, on Granny Tunk's
ravings, I should have the jewels and long since would have cleared out
with them. But the fact that I am still here with Rosamund proves that I
am innocent."
"We must go and see the police to-morrow, Henry," said Mrs. Vand, "and
have this wicked girl arrested. She must be made to give up the papers
she has stolen. Oh!"--Mrs. Vand plunged forward--"I could scratch her
eyes out!"
Undoubtedly the furious woman would have made the attempt, but that
Bella was on her guard. Already in the secret passage, she had only to
touch a spring and the panel sprang back into its place with a click. In
the darkness Bella heard her so-called aunt hurl herself against the
hard wood, using very bad language. Then came the beating of fists
against the panel in the vain attempt to break it down. Bella knew that
the panel was too strong to break, but thought it was best to leave the
house as speedily as possible. Cyril was waiting for her near the
boundary channel, and the sooner she joined him the better. As she
turned to go she heard the high, screaming voice of Mrs. Vand raging
wildly.
"Go up on the roof and use the search-light, Henry!" shouted Mrs. Vand.
"The minx will get out of the house by some way we don't know of, and
must get down the corn-path. I'll catch her there, and you show the
light so that I can seize her. I'll tear her hair out! I'll scratch her
eyes out! I'll make her ill, and----" what else Mrs. Vand was about to
do to her, Bella did not hear, as there was no time to be lost in
getting away from the dangerous neighborhood of the infuriated woman.
Bella sped along the narrow passage fearlessly, as long experience had
made her acquainted with its intricacies. It was contrived in the thick
dividing walls of the old house on the ground floor. At one part there
was a shaft leading to another passage on the first floor, and up this
it was possible to scramble by notches cut in the walls. Bella had half
a mind to ascend to the upper story, and linger for a chance of escape.
But as Cyril waited her at the boundary channel, it was possible that he
might come into contact with Mrs. Vand, who would be furiously hunting.
Therefore, she judged it best to leave the house and gain the corn-path
before Mrs. Vand could intercept her. With this scheme in her mind Bella
ran along the passage until she came to a door, which turned on a
central pivot. This she twisted, and slipped like an eel through the
opening to find herself in a kind of tiny chamber. Groping round this
she soon discovered the hasp of a closed door, which she skilfully
manipulated. The door--a narrow one and somewhat high--swung open, and
the girl was outside in a quiet corner at the back of the house, and
hidden fairly well by a projecting buttress. A screen of ivy clothed the
Manor wall at this point, and the door was concealed behind the screen,
so that its existence had never been suspected. Bella had discovered the
exit from the inside, and had cut round the ivy that masked the door so
that she could get it open. Of course, the cut ivy had more or less
withered, but even so, no one guessed that there was a door behind the
brownish oblong.
The night was dark and warm and silent. Bella stole along the footpath,
which ran between the house and the tall, rustling stalks of the corn.
Several times she paused, thinking she heard a noise, but everything was
still, and she speedily turned the corner of the mansion. Apparently
Mrs. Vand was not on the hunt yet, or perhaps she was busy with the
search-light which she had asked her husband to use. However this might
be, Bella saw that the course was clear, and stealing round to the front
door, which she found to be closed, she sped like an antelope down the
winding corn-path which led to the boundary channel. Just as she reached
the top of this and was prepared to start down it, the beam of the
electric light struck into the dark sky.
Huxham had rigged up the light on the flat roof, between the sloping
tiles, but Vand had transferred it to the quarter deck, which was slung
round the chimney. Thus he was enabled to sweep the whole horizon
without being interrupted by the tall roofs of the Manor. The beam swung
round here and there, pointing like a great finger, and finally settled
on the corn-path and on Bella's dark figure running for dear life from
the mansion. The girl heard Vand's shout as he espied her, heard also
the front door opening, as Mrs. Vand rushed in pursuit.
But Mrs. Vand, like Hamlet, was stout and scant of breath, and with all
the will in the world urged by a venomous hatred, could not gain on her
detested niece, who ran like Atlanta. The search-beam revealed the path
plainly, and showing the flying figure of Bella, with Mrs. Vand panting
in vindictive pursuit. Towards the end of the path near the boundary
channel Bella called softly and breathlessly, "Cyril! Cyril! Mrs. Vand
is following. Hide! hide!"
At that moment the beam struck the boundary channel, and revealed the
white-clothed figure of young Lister. It rested for a moment there, and
then dropped back to aid the steps of Mrs. Vand. Cyril seized the chance
of the friendly darkness, and as Bella ran into his arms he dragged her
into the standing corn. In less than a moment they were lying some
distance from the path amongst the crushed stalks, while Mrs. Vand
blundered past, running unsteadily. If Vand had kept the beam on Bella,
she and her lover would not have been able to hide, but having been
forced to give light to his stout wife, the two were enabled to escape.
They could hear Mrs. Vand puffing and panting like a grampus, as she
searched round and round. In Cyril's arms, on Cyril's breast, Bella felt
perfectly safe, and in spite of the position and of the near presence of
her enemy, was bubbling over with laughter.
Mrs. Vand crossed the boundary channel, and finding no one on the hither
side, concluded that Bella had escaped. She returned slowly, and, as
Vand had now shut off the beam--for he also had seen that the search was
vain--she stumbled up the path in a very bad temper. As her sighs and
groans died away and the darkness gathered around, Cyril and Bella rose,
and gliding back to the verge of the boundary channel, crossed rapidly.
In a few minutes they were on their way to Marshely.
"What does it all mean, dear?" asked Cyril, when they were quite safe.
Bella told him all about her adventure.