When Juliet, incensed and indignant at the Russian's behaviour,
discovered the door in the clock and was on the point of opening it
and making her presence known, a noise of steps in the passage made
her pause. As she listened, there was the sound of a key turning in
the lock, the library door was thrown suddenly open, and Mark stepped
into the room.
Juliet saw Julia's expression as she sprang round to face the newcomer.
She saw it change, swift as lightning, from a look of horrified dismay to
one of sudden transforming tenderness, as the girl recognized the
intruder, that the hand already in the act of pushing open the door of
the clock fell inert and limp to her side, and if she had been able to
move she would have lost no time in retreating. She knew instinctively
that she was seeing a secret laid bare which she had no right to spy
upon. And yet, though her impulse was to fly from the place in
embarrassment and confusion, something stronger than her natural
discretion and delicacy held her where she stood. For Julia had not come
here for the purpose of meeting Mark. She had come with a purpose less
personal: something, Juliet felt convinced, that was in some way vaguely
discreditable, and at the same time menacing. It could be for no harmless
reason that she had taken this secret, dangerous way into the castle.
And so Juliet kept her ground, blushing at her role of spy, and averting
her eyes as Julia dropped the book she was holding and ran forward to
meet Mark, with that tell-tale look upon her face.
But Mark did not show the same pleasure. He stood, holding the handle of
the door, which he had closed gently behind him, and looking with a
certain sternness at the girl.
"Julia," he said, "you here! What are you doing?"
"Oh, Mark," she cried, not answering his question, "aren't you glad to
see me? It is so long, oh, it is so long since I saw you!"
She threw her arms round his neck with a happy laugh, and drew his face
down to hers.
"Darling! darling!" she murmured. "How can we live without each other for
one single day!"
She spoke in a low, soft voice. To Juliet, to whom every purling syllable
was painfully audible, it sounded cooingly, like the voice of doves.
To the surprise of the girl to whom Mark had proposed marriage two days
before, when she ventured to peep through her spy window, Mark's arms
were round Julia and he was kissing her ardently.
But after a moment he released himself gently.
"You haven't told me, dear," he said, "what you are doing here."
His voice held a note of authority before which Julia's assurance
vanished.
"I--I wasn't doing anything," she muttered.
"Julia!" he remonstrated.
"Well," she said, with some show of defiance, "I suppose anyone may take
a book from the library."
"Of course," he said, "you may take anything of mine you want. Still, as
you are not staying in the house--In short, it seems to me that the
more obvious course would have been to have said something to me about
it; and besides," he added, struck by a sudden thought, "how in the world
did you get in? The door was locked, and the key is on the outside."
"Oh, if you're going to make such a fuss about nothing," she exclaimed
petulantly, her toe beginning to tap the boards, "it's not worth
explaining anything to you." She turned away and walked towards the
fireplace.
"I'm not making a fuss," Mark said quietly, "but you must tell me, Julia,
what you are doing here, and how you came. To speak plainly, I don't
believe you came for a book."
"If you don't believe me, what's the good of my saying anything?" she
retorted. "Oh, how horrid you are to-day, Mark. I don't believe you love
me a bit, any more." And leaning her head against the mantelpiece, she
burst into tears.
"You know it isn't that, Julia," he said, looking at her fixedly. "Don't
cry, there's a dear, good girl. You know that I love you. Why, you're the
only thing in the whole world that I really want. But you must tell me
how you came here. Tell me," he repeated, taking her hands from her face,
and forcing her to look at him, "what you want in the library. Tell me,
Julia, I want to know."
She seemed to struggle to keep silence, but to be unable to resist his
questioning eyes.
"I suppose I must tell you," she murmured; "it's not that I don't want
to. But they would kill me if they knew. Oh, Mark, I ought not to tell
you, but how can I keep anything secret from my beloved? Swear to me
that you will never repeat it, or try to hinder me in what I have to do?"
He bent and kissed her.
"Julia," he said, "can't you trust me?"
"I do, I do," she cried. "While you love me, I trust you. But if you left
off, what then? That is the nightmare that haunts me. Mark, Mark, what
would become of me if you were to change towards me?"
He kissed her again, murmuring reassuring words that did not reach
Juliet's ears. "So tell me now," he ended, "what you were doing here."
"Mark," she said nervously, "you know where my childhood was passed?"
"In St. Petersburg," he replied wonderingly.
"Yes, in Petersburg. And you know how things are there. It is so
different from your England, my England. For I am English really, Mark,
although that thought always seems so strange to me; since during so many
years I believed myself to be a Russian. I am the daughter of English
parents; my father was a very respectable London plumber of the name of
Harsden, whose business went to the bad and who died, leaving my mother
to face ruin and starvation with a family of five small children, of whom
I was the last. When a lady who took an interest in the parish in which
we lived suggested that a friend of hers should adopt one of the
children, my mother was only too thankful to accept the proposal, and I
was the one from whom she chose to be parted. I have never seen her
since, but she is still alive, and I send her money from time to time.
"The lady who adopted me was Countess Romaninov, and I believed
myself her child till a day or two before she died, when she told me,
to my lasting regret, the true story of my origin. But I was brought
up a Russian, and I shall never feel myself to be English. Somehow the
soil you live on in your childhood seems to get into your bones, as
you say here. It is true that I speak your language easily, but it was
Russian that my baby lips first learned. My sympathies, my point of
view, my friends, all except yourself, are Russian. And I have one
essentially Russian attribute, I am a member of what you would call a
Nihilist society."
Mark interrupted her with an interjection of surprise, but she nodded her
head defiantly, and continued:
"All my life, all my private ends and desires must be governed by the
needs of my country. First and foremost I exist that the rule of the
Tyrant may be abolished, and the Slav be free to work out his own
salvation; he shall be saved from the fate that now overwhelms and
crushes him; dragged bodily from under the heel of the oppressor. I am
not the only one. We are many who think as one mind. And the day is not
far distant when our sacrifices shall bear fruit. Ah, Mark, what a great
cause, what a noble purpose, is this of ours! Perhaps I shall be able to
convert you, to fire your cold British blood with my enthusiasm?"
She stopped and looked at him inquiringly. But he made no reply, and
after a moment she continued, placing her hand fondly upon his shoulder
as she spoke.
"Our plan is to terrify the rulers into submission. We must not shrink
from killing, and killing suddenly and unexpectedly, till they abandon
the wickedness of their ways. They must never know what it is to feel
safe. And we see to it that they do not. Death waits for them at the
street corner, on their travels, at their own doorsteps. They never know
at what moment the bomb may not be thrown, or the pistol fired. It is
sad that explosives are so unreliable. There are many difficulties. You
would not believe the obstacles that we find placed in our path at every
turning. And for those who are suspected there is Siberia, and the
mines. But it is worth it. It is worth anything to feel that one is
working and risking all for one's country, and one's fellow-countrymen.
It is an honour to belong to a band of such noble men and women. But now
and then one is admitted who turns out to be unworthy. Yes, even such a
cause as ours has traitors to contend with. And your uncle, Lord Ashiel,
was one of them."
"What," said Mark incredulously, "Uncle Douglas a Nihilist? Nonsense.
It's impossible."
"He was, really. For he joined the 'Friends of Man' when he was at the
British Embassy at Petersburg long years ago; and no sooner had he been
initiated than he turned round and denounced the society and all its
works. Worse still, he declared his intention of hindering it from
carrying out its programme. He would have been got rid of there and
then, but as ill-luck would have it he had, by an unheard-of chain of
accidents, become possessed of an important document belonging to the
society. It was, indeed, a list of the principal people on the executive
committee that fell into his hands, and he took the precaution of
sending it to England, with instructions that if anything happened to
him it should be forwarded to the Russian Police, before he made known
his ridiculous objections to our programme. Here, as you will
understand, was a most impossible situation with which there was
apparently no means of coping.
"For years that one man hampered and frustrated our entire organization.
He was practically able to dictate his own terms, for he announced his
intention of publishing the list of names if we carried out any important
project, and no device could be contrived to stop his being as good as
his word. The tyrant has walked unscathed except by mere private
enterprise, and the government we could have caused to crumble to the
ground has flourished and continued to work evil as before. We have been
crippled, paralysed in every direction. It was only last year that there
seemed reason to think that Lord Ashiel had removed the document from the
Bank of England where it had for so long been guarded, and there appeared
to be a possibility that he now kept it in his own house. If that were
so, there seemed a good chance of getting hold of it, and how proud I am,
Mark, to think that it was I who was chosen to make the attempt!
"I came to England with the best introductions into society, and had no
difficulty in making friends with your aunt and obtaining an invitation
to stay here. Last year I did not succeed in gaining any information.
Your uncle, for some reason, seemed rather to avoid me, and I did not
make any headway towards gaining his confidence. I never could be sure if
he suspected me. This year there was a question of replacing me by some
one else, but it was judged that Lord Ashiel's suspicions would be
certainly awakened by the appearance of another Russian, so, in the hope
that I was not associated in his mind with the people to which he had
behaved so basely, I was ordered to try again.
"A member of the society, who occupies a high and responsible position on
the council, accompanied me to the neighbourhood, and from time to time I
report to him and receive his advice and instructions. He stays in
Crianan, so that I have some one within reach to go to for advice. At
least, so I am officially informed, but I know very well he is really
there to keep watch on me, for it is not the habit of the society to
trust its members more than is unavoidable. If it is possible, I go once
a week to Crianan and make my report, but I can't always manage to go,
and then he rows across the loch after dark and I go out and meet him. He
was to come on the night of the murder, and my first thought when I heard
of it was that he might be caught in the shrubberies and mistaken for the
murderer. But it appears that he had already taken alarm, and I am
thankful to say he was able to escape in good time."
"So David really did see some one wandering about that night," Mark
commented thoughtfully. "Ah, Julia, if you'd told me all this earlier
everything might have been different. Poor old David need never have been
dragged into it at all."
She looked at him a moment, as if puzzled, and then continued her story.
"It was thought that I might be able to bring about your uncle's death by
some means that should have all the appearance of an accident, and so
perhaps not involve action on the part of those who hold the
document--that is, if it should prove not to be in his own keeping--for
he had always assured the council that no decisive step would be taken
except as a retort to signs of violence on our part, whether directed
towards himself or others.
"I have not been able to find any trace of the list. I thought I had it
one day in London, when I followed Lord Ashiel to a detective's office,
and managed to gain possession of an envelope given him by Lord Ashiel,
but as far as I could make out it contained nothing of any importance. It
was a bitter disappointment. You can imagine the consternation into which
we were thrown by the murder. It seemed certain that his death would be
attributed to our organization, and if anyone held the list for him it
would be published immediately. Four days have passed, however, and my
superior has received a cable saying that so far all is well. It looks
more and more as if the list had been kept here, but I have hunted
everywhere and found nothing. Oh, I have searched without ceasing since
the moment I heard of his death! I came here even on the very night of
the murder, and moved the body with my own hands in order to get at the
bureau drawers. There is a secret way into the room through that old
clock there, which leads into the grounds; I found it long ago, one day
when I was exploring outside in the shrubberies. I have often been here,
and searched, and searched again. Do you know anything of this document,
Mark? If you do, I beg and implore you to give it to me. Otherwise I
cannot answer for your life; and, as for our marriage, that is out of the
question unless I am successful in my undertaking."
It may be imagined with what amazement and growing horror Juliet listened
to this avowal. That Julia, the girl with whom she had associated on
terms of easy familiarity which had been near to becoming something like
intimacy in the close contact and companionship of a country-house life,
that this girl, an honoured guest in Lord Ashiel's house, should have
gained her footing there for her own treacherous ends, or at the bidding
of a band of political assassins! Juliet could scarcely believe her ears
as she heard the calm, indifferent tone in which Julia spoke of the
drawbacks to "getting rid" of Lord Ashiel, and of the contemplated
"accident" which was to have befallen him. She would have fled from where
she stood, if mingled fear and curiosity to hear more had not rooted her
to the spot. Her alarm was tempered by the presence of Mark. If this girl
should discover her hiding there and show signs of the violence that
might be expected from such a character, Mark would be there to protect
her. She could trust him to know how to deal with the Russian, whose true
nature must now be apparent to him.
But Mark, to her astonishment, had not drawn away from Julia with the
repugnance and disgust that were to be expected. Instead, he was looking
at her, strangely, indeed, but almost eagerly.
"It was you, then, who moved the body! To think that I never guessed!" he
murmured, half to himself. "If I had known, I might have spared myself
the trouble to--" Then more loudly he reproached his companion.
"And you have never said a word to me! Oh, Julia, you didn't trust me."
He shook his head at her mournfully.
"Trust you!" she retorted. "Did you trust me? But I would have trusted
you," she added, gazing fondly into his eyes, "if I had dared risk the
punishment that will surely be meted out to me if it is known I have done
so. You don't know how rigid the rules of our society are. But you
haven't told me yet if you have the list."
"Not I," he said. "I never heard of its existence. I suppose that
anonymous letter that came addressed to Uncle Douglas after his death had
something to do with that."
"Did a letter come from Paris? They sent them to him from time to time.
It prevented his suspecting me. But you will give me the list if you find
it, won't you? It means everything to me."
"Of course I will," he promised. "It is no earthly good to me, so far as
I know. But you, when you were looking for it, did you, among all the
papers you examined, ever come across such a thing as a will?"
"No, never," she replied. "Mrs. Clutsam told me it could not be found.
You may be sure, if I had discovered one which did not leave you
everything, I should have destroyed it."
"Dear little Julia!" Mark drew her to him and kissed her. "How sweet you
are. There is no one like you!"
"Really? Do you really love me, Mark?"
"Darling, of course I do."
"Will you always? Are you quite, quite sure that I am the one girl in all
the world for you, as you are the one man for me?"
"Darling, you are the only one in the world I have ever so much as
looked at."
"Would you never, never forget me, or marry anyone else, no matter what
happened?"
"Never," he assured her, "never."
She sighed contentedly.
"What should I do if you forgot me, Mark? I should die. But," she added
in a different tone, "I think I should kill you first!"
Mark laughed a little uneasily.
"Hush, hush," he said, "you mustn't talk so much about killing. A minute
ago you were talking of killing my poor old uncle. If I took you
seriously what should I think? It is lucky I love you as I do, otherwise
doesn't it occur to you that it might get you into trouble to talk in
this wild way?"
"You can take me as seriously as you like," she answered gravely. "I am
serious enough, God knows. But I shouldn't talk about it, even to you, if
I didn't _know_ it was safe. You see, I know you are like me."
"Like you? I'm dashed if I am! How do you mean? I am like you?"
She looked at him squarely, and nodded.
"Yes," she said, "you are like me. You would not hesitate to kill if you
thought it necessary. You think just the same as me on that subject. Only
you have gone farther than I have--yet."
"Julia," he cried, "what do you mean?"
"I mean that I know all about you, Mark," she replied gravely. "I know
what you think you have kept secret from me. I know it was you who killed
your uncle."
With a muffled cry Mark shook himself free, and sprang away from her.
"What are you saying?" he whispered hoarsely. "You are mad, girl! But I
won't have such lies uttered, I won't have it, I tell you."
With terrified amazement Juliet saw his face change, become ugly,
distorted. But Julia showed no sign of alarm.
"Why get so excited?" she asked calmly. "What does it matter? Do you
imagine I would betray you? I, who would sell my soul for you! I know you
did it. It is no use keeping up this pretence of innocence to me, who had
more right to kill him than you. Why shouldn't you kill who you wish? But
don't say you didn't do it. It is foolish. I saw you."
"It is a lie. You can't have seen me," Mark declared again, but with less
assurance. "You were in the drawing-room all the time. Lady Ruth and
Maisie Tarver both said so. The drawing-room doesn't even look out on the
garden. There is no room that does, except the library, and you weren't
there then, anyhow."
"I didn't see you fire the shot," said Julia, "but I saw you afterwards
when you went to put back your rifle in the gun-room. I told you that
after the first search in the grounds was over, and everyone had gone
up to bed, I slipped out of the house by the door near the gunroom, and
came round to the library to see if Lord Ashiel had carried the list on
him. When I came back, I let myself in quietly by the door which I had
left unbolted, and had just got half-way up the back stairs when I
heard footsteps in the passage below, and crouched down behind the
banisters. I saw you come along the passage, carrying an electric
lantern in one hand and your rifle in the other. I saw you look round
anxiously before opening the gun-room door and going in. When you had
vanished, I hurried on up to my room, for it was not the time or place
to tell you what I had seen, but I left a crack of my door open, and
after rather a long while saw you pass along the passage to your own
room; this time without your gun. I knew, of course, that you had been
cleaning it and putting it away."
She spoke with the indifference with which one may refer to a regrettable
but incontrovertible fact, and Mark seemed to feel it useless to deny
what she said.
"You had no right to spy on me," he exclaimed angrily when she had done.
"Oh, Mark," she cried, dismayed, "I wasn't spying. It was the merest
accident. And I think it's horrid of you to mind my knowing. Why didn't
you tell me all about it before. I might have helped you, I'm sure."
But he would have none of her endearments, and threw off the hand she
laid upon his arm with a rough gesture.
"Mark, oh, Mark," she wailed, "don't be angry with me! You know I can't
bear it. I can bear anything but that. Don't, don't be angry with me."
She had but one thought; it was for him, and he who ran might read it
shining in the depths of her great eyes. After a few minutes of sulking,
Mark relented.
"No one could be angry with you for long, Julia," he declared.
Instantly she was once more all smiles.
"Don't ever be angry with me again," she urged, her hands in his. "And
now that you have forgiven me, tell me all about it. What made you do
such a dreadful thing, Mark? You must have had some good reason, I know.
I never would doubt that."
"There's nothing much to tell," he said unwillingly. "I had a good
reason, yes. I must have money. It is for your sake, darling, that I must
get it. I can't marry you without it. I hadn't meant to kill him, if I
could get it without. He was ill, and had left his fortune to me. I
thought I should get it in time, by letting Nature take her course. It
was that or ruin, and I really had to do it for your sake, darling. I
didn't want to hurt the old boy. Why should I? It's not a pleasant thing
to have to do. But I had no choice--there was no other way of getting
enough money, and I simply had to get it. It was his life or mine. You
don't understand. I can't explain. It just had to be done, and there's an
end of it. Everything was going wrong. That girl, that Byrne girl, I
imagined he was going to marry her. You know we all did. That would have
spoilt everything. At first I thought she could be got out of the way,
but she seemed to bear a charmed life."
"What?" cried Julia, "did you try to kill her too?"
"Why, if anyone had to be got rid of," he admitted defiantly, "it seemed
better to go for a stranger, like her, than for my own uncle. Come, you
must see that, surely! She was nothing to me, and, anyhow, my hand was
forced. It's very hard that I should have been put in such a position.
I'm the last person to do harm to a fly, but one must think of oneself."
Since it was no use denying the murder, he seemed to find some sort of
satisfaction in telling Julia of his other crimes. And yet, though he
tried hard to speak with an affectation of indifference, it was plain
that he kept a watchful eye upon his listener, and was ready to fasten
resentfully upon the first sign of horror, or even disapproval. For all
his efforts, the tone of his disclosures was at once swaggering and
suspicious; but he need have had no anxiety as to the spirit in which
they would be received. It was clear that Julia brought to his judgment
no remembrance of ordinary human standards of conduct. To her he was
above such criticisms, as the Immortals might be supposed to be above
the rules that applied to dwellers upon earth. What he did was right in
her eyes, because he did it, and she admired his brutality, as she adored
the rest of him, whole-heartedly, without reservation.
"I had a shot at her," he went on, "one day on the moor when she was with
David; but I missed her. It was a rotten shot. I can't think how I came
to do it. Then when she fell into the river--I saw her standing by it as
I came home from stalking.... I had walked on ahead, and where the path
runs along above the waterfall pool I happened to go to the edge and look
over. There she was on a stone right at the edge, by the deepest part. It
looked as if she'd been put there on purpose, and I should have been a
fool to miss such a chance. It's no good going against fate. As a matter
of fact I thought I'd got her sitting this time. I caught up the nearest
piece of rock and dropped it down on her. That was a good shot, though I
say it, but it hit her on the shoulder instead of the head as luck would
have it, which was bad luck for me. However, in she went, and I thought
all was well and lost no time in getting away from the place. If it
hadn't been for that meddling fool Andy!... Well, then, at dinner, Uncle
Douglas came out with the news that she was his daughter, not his
intended, and everything looked worse than ever. Afterwards when she went
to talk to him in the library, and passed through the billiard-room where
I was knocking the balls about and feeling pretty savage, I can tell you,
I happened, by a fluke, to ask her if she knew where David was. She said
he'd gone into the garden.
"Then I saw my chance, and it seemed too good to miss. Why should I let
my inheritance be stolen from me? I ran off to the gun-room for a gun. I
meant to take David's rifle, but I found he hadn't cleaned it, so I left
it alone and took mine, as the thing was really too important to risk
using a strange gun unless it was absolutely necessary, and his is a
little shorter in the stock than I like. I nipped back and let myself out
of the passage door into the enclosed garden. It was a black night,
though I knew my way blindfolded about there. But the curtains of the
library were drawn, and I couldn't see between them without stepping on
the flower bed. I knew too much to leave my footmarks all over them, but
I had to get on to the bed to have a chance of getting a shot. So I got
the long plank the gardeners use to avoid stepping on the flower beds
when they're bedding out, from the tool-house behind the holly hedge
where I knew it was kept, and put it down near the hedge. It is held up
clear of the ground by two cross pieces of wood, one at each end, you
know, so there would be no marks left to identify me by.
"When I walked to the end of the plank, I could see straight into the
middle of the room; but they must have been sitting near the fire, for no
one was in sight. I could see the writing bureau and the chair in front
of it, and dimly in the back of the room I could make out the face of the
clock, but that was all.
"Well, I stood there for what seemed a long while. You've no idea how
cramping it is to stand on a narrow plank with no room to take a step
forward or back, for long at a time. And I don't mind telling you I got a
bit jumpy, waiting there. If anyone chanced to come along, what could I
say by way of explanation? I couldn't think of anything the least likely
to wash. And somehow, in the dark, one begins to imagine things. I saw
David coming at me across the lawn every other minute. And it seemed so
hideously likely that he should come. I knew he was somewhere out in the
grounds. By Jove, if he had, he'd have got the bullet instead of Uncle
Douglas! But he didn't come. Those beastly shadows and shapes and
whisperings and rustlings that seemed to be all round me, hiding in the
night, turned out to be nothing after all. But when I didn't fancy him at
my elbow, I imagined he was in the gunroom, wondering where the dickens
my rifle had got to.
"Oh, I had a happy half-hour among the roses, I tell you! A rifle is a
heavy thing too. I leant it up against a rose-bush and tried to sit down
on the plank, but it wouldn't do, and I saw I must bear it standing, or
Uncle Douglas might cross in front of the slit between the curtains
without my having time to get a shot. You must remember I'd been on the
hill all day, so that I was very stiff to begin with. It got so bad that
I began to think it was hardly worth the candle at last--and it's a
wonder I didn't miss him clean--when, just as I was on the point of
giving the whole thing up and going in again, he came suddenly into my
field of vision, and actually sat down at the table.
"I took a careful aim and fired. I saw him fall forward, and then I
jumped off the plank and hurled it back under the hedge before I ran for
the house. I had left the door ajar, and I just stayed to close it, and
then darted into the empty billiard-room and thrust my rifle under a
sofa. It was a quick bit of work. I had counted on Juliet Byrne waiting a
moment or two to see if she could do anything to help him before she
roused the house, or it roused itself, and she was rather longer than I
expected. I don't mind owning I got into a panic when minutes passed and
no one appeared, and I began to think I must have missed the old boy
altogether. I was within an ace of going to make certain, when the door
opened and in she came. Oh well, you know all the rest. That silly old
ass, David, was still mooning about in the garden, thinking of her, I
suppose, which was very lucky for me."
Julia had listened with absorbed interest.
"I think it is wonderful," she said, "that you should have gone through
all that for my sake. I shall always try to deserve it, my dear. Was it
all, all for me, that you did it, truly?"
"Yes," Mark assured her, gruffly monosyllabic.
"But how was it," she asked caressingly, "that Sir David's footprints
were found all over the rose-bed. What was he doing there?"
"That was an afterthought," Mark admitted. "It was a tophole idea. After
every one had gone upstairs, I crept down and got my Mannlicher from
where I had hidden it, and took it to the gun-room, where I cleaned it
and put it in its usual place. It was lucky for me that David had left
his weapon dirty. It was jolly unlike him to do it. I was thinking what a
good thing it was, and how well things looked like turning out--for I
thought I could manage the girl if she was able to prove that she really
was a McConachan--and it struck me I ought to be able to contrive that
the business should look a bit blacker against poor old David. Every one
knew he'd had a row with Uncle Douglas about his beastly dog, and if I
could only manufacture a little more evidence against him I knew I should
be pretty safe, one way and another. I was going back to the garden to
put by the gardener's plank, when I thought of using his boots. It didn't
take long to find them among all the boots used that day by the
household, which were ranged in a row in the place where they clean them
in the back premises. His bootmakers' name was in them. I took them, and
when I got to the garden door I put them on, and went out and trampled
about among the roses till I was pretty sure that even the blindest
country bobby couldn't fail to notice the tracks I'd left, though of
course I couldn't see them myself in the dark. Then I got the plank out
of the hedge and put it away where I'd found it. After that, I took the
boots back, and went to bed; and very glad I was to get there. Now you've
heard the whole story."
"How clever you are," murmured the girl. "There's no one like you," she
said, "no one." Mark smiled rather fatuously. He evidently shared her
opinion that his brains were something slightly out of the way. "And
everything happened just as you'd planned," she went on admiringly. "They
suspected Sir David from the first. I should have, myself, if I hadn't
known it was you who had done it."
"Yes," said Mark, "they suspected him, the silly idiots! They might have
known he hasn't the initiative to do a thing like that. And the girl
can't prove her relationship to Uncle Douglas, just as I expected. I
thought there might be some difficulty about that. But I wish I could
find the will he made in her favour. I should feel safer then, for she
told me he said he'd worded it so that she should get the money whether
she was proved his daughter or not. And who knows what other mad clauses
he may have put in it. Lately, for some reason I could never make out, I
felt sure he had changed towards me. He let fall a hint one day that his
legacies to me were conditional on my good behaviour. I don't feel easy
about it at all. Some one must have been telling him things--poisoning
his mind. But I've hunted high and low, and found nothing. I'm sick of
looking over musty old bills."
"Oh, we shall find it between us now," said Julia hopefully. "I wish I
had some idea where the list I want is, though," she added.
"There's that detective, too," pursued Mark. "That fellow Gimblet. I'm
rather fed up with him. Not that he seems any use at his work, though
he's supposed to be rather first-class at it, I believe."
"Gimblet! Is that who it is? Mrs. Clutsam told me a London detective
was here, but I didn't know who it was. I have met him before, and
found him very easy to manage. I don't think you need be afraid of
anything he may do."
"I shall be glad when he's off the place, anyhow," said Mark.
"I shall be glad when the whole business is over and forgotten," Julia
rejoined. "I wish we could be married at once, Mark darling. But why
can't it be given out that we are engaged. I don't understand why we
should keep it a secret now. I can't stand seeing so little of you as I
have these last few days."
"Be patient, darling, wait just a little longer. There are reasons, as I
have told you. I must get my financial affairs straight, for one thing,
before I allow you to tie yourself to me. Suppose I turn out to be a
beggar? I couldn't let you marry me then, you know."
"Mark!" Julia's voice was full of reproach. "You know perfectly well how
little I care about your money. I would be only too glad to marry you if
you hadn't a penny. But perhaps you mean that if you were poor you
wouldn't want to burden yourself with a wife?"
"You know how I adore you, Julia. How can you suggest such a thing? I
couldn't even dream of a life without you. You show how little you know
me. But, believe me, it is wisest to wait a short time longer before we
are publicly engaged. You must take my word for it, and not made me
unhappy by imagining such cruel things. Come, let us look for this list
of yours. What were you doing--searching among the books?"
"Yes," said she, rising, as he went towards a bookshelf, and following
him. "I thought it might be hidden between the leaves of one of these old
volumes. One reads of such things."
"I wonder," he said absently. "The will, too, may be here. Is there a
Bible anywhere? I believe that's a favourite place of concealment. Then,
when the heir is virtuous and reads his Bible, he gets the legacy, you
know; while, if he isn't, he doesn't. A sort of poetic justice is meted
out. If I find it in that way I shall take it as a sign that I am really
the virtuous one and that Heaven absolves me from all blame."
He spoke mockingly, but Julia answered very seriously:
"Of course you ought to have it; and if I don't blame you, why should
anyone else?"
"Well," he said after a pause, "at all events I mean to get it, whether
or no, if I have to pull down every stone of the place. That reminds me,"
he added, "where is the secret entrance you use? Through this old clock?
Who would have thought it?"
In a moment Juliet realized that she was going to be caught. She had
been so absorbed in listening to the dreadful revelations that had been
made during the last half-hour that not till now had she considered how
dangerous was her position.
As he spoke, Mark threw open the door of the clock case. Too late, she
turned to fly; he caught her by the arm and, with a stifled oath, dragged
her into the room.
"How long have you been there?" he cried, and fell to swearing horribly;
while Julia stood by, not speaking, but looking at Juliet with an
expression which frightened her more than all his violence.