Intentness pervaded everything; Night herself seemed to have become a
watcher.
The four persons proceeded across the glade, and into the park
plantation, at equidistances of about seventy yards. Here the ground,
completely overhung by the foliage, was coated with a thick moss which
was as soft as velvet beneath their feet. The first watcher, that
is, the man walking immediately behind Manston, now fell back,
when Manston’s housekeeper, knowing the ground pretty well, dived
circuitously among the trees and got directly behind the steward, who,
encumbered with his load, had proceeded but slowly. The other woman
seemed now to be about opposite to Anne, or a little in advance, but on
Manston’s other hand.
He reached a pit, midway between the waterfall and the engine-house.
There he stopped, wiped his face, and listened.
Into this pit had drifted uncounted generations of withered leaves, half
filling it. Oak, beech, and chestnut, rotten and brown alike, mingled
themselves in one fibrous mass. Manston descended into the midst of
them, placed his sack on the ground, and raking the leaves aside into a
large heap, began digging. Anne softly drew nearer, crept into a bush,
and turning her head to survey the rest, missed the man who had dropped
behind, and whom we have called the first watcher. Concluding that he,
too, had hidden himself, she turned her attention to the second watcher,
the other woman, who had meanwhile advanced near to where Anne lay
in hiding, and now seated herself behind a tree, still closer to the
steward than was Anne Seaway.
Here and thus Anne remained concealed. The crunch of the steward’s
spade, as it cut into the soft vegetable mould, was plainly perceptible
to her ears when the periodic cessations between the creaks of the
engine concurred with a lull in the breeze, which otherwise brought
the subdued roar of the cascade from the further side of the bank
that screened it. A large hole--some four or five feet deep--had been
excavated by Manston in about twenty minutes. Into this he immediately
placed the sack, and then began filling in the earth, and treading it
down. Lastly he carefully raked the whole mass of dead and dry leaves
into the middle of the pit, burying the ground with them as they had
buried it before.
For a hiding-place the spot was unequalled. The thick accumulation
of leaves, which had not been disturbed for centuries, might not be
disturbed again for centuries to come, whilst their lower layers still
decayed and added to the mould beneath.
By the time this work was ended the sky had grown clearer, and Anne
could now see distinctly the face of the other woman, stretching from
behind the tree, seemingly forgetful of her position in her intense
contemplation of the actions of the steward. Her countenance was white
and motionless.
It was impossible that Manston should not soon notice her. At the
completion of his labour he turned, and did so.
‘Ho--you here!’ he exclaimed.
‘Don’t think I am a spy upon you,’ she said, in an imploring whisper.
Anne recognized the voice as Miss Aldclyffe’s.
The trembling lady added hastily another remark, which was drowned in
the recurring creak of the engine close at hand The first watcher, if he
had come no nearer than his original position, was too far off to hear
any part of this dialogue, on account of the roar of the falling water,
which could reach him unimpeded by the bank.
The remark of Miss Aldclyffe to Manston had plainly been concerning the
first watcher, for Manston, with his spade in his hand, instantly rushed
to where the man was concealed, and, before the latter could disengage
himself from the boughs, the steward struck him on the head with the
blade of the instrument. The man fell to the ground.
‘Fly!’ said Miss Aldclyffe to Manston. Manston vanished amidst the
trees. Miss Aldclyffe went off in a contrary direction.
Anne Seaway was about to run away likewise, when she turned and looked
at the fallen man. He lay on his face, motionless.
Many of these women who own to no moral code show considerable
magnanimity when they see people in trouble. To act right simply because
it is one’s duty is proper; but a good action which is the result of no
law of reflection shines more than any. She went up to him and gently
turned him over, upon which he began to show signs of life. By her
assistance he was soon able to stand upright.
He looked about him with a bewildered air, endeavouring to collect his
ideas. ‘Who are you?’ he said to the woman, mechanically.
It was bad policy now to attempt disguise. ‘I am the supposed Mrs.
Manston,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’
‘I am the officer employed by Mr. Raunham to sift this mystery--which
may be criminal.’ He stretched his limbs, pressed his head, and
seemed gradually to awake to a sense of having been incautious in his
utterance. ‘Never you mind who I am,’ he continued. ‘Well, it doesn’t
matter now, either--it will no longer be a secret.’
He stooped for his hat and ran in the direction the steward had
taken--coming back again after the lapse of a minute.
‘It’s only an aggravated assault, after all,’ he said hastily, ‘until we
have found out for certain what’s buried here. It may be only a bag of
building rubbish; but it may be more. Come and help me dig.’ He seized
the spade with the awkwardness of a town man, and went into the pit,
continuing a muttered discourse. ‘It’s no use my running after him
single-handed,’ he said. ‘He’s ever so far off by this time. The best
step is to see what is here.’
It was far easier for the detective to re-open the hole than it had been
for Manston to form it. The leaves were raked away, the loam thrown out,
and the sack dragged forth.
‘Hold this,’ he said to Anne, whose curiosity still kept her standing
near. He turned on the light of a dark lantern he had brought, and gave
it into her hand.
The string which bound the mouth of the sack was now cut. The officer
laid the bag on its side, seized it by the bottom, and jerked forth
the contents. A large package was disclosed, carefully wrapped up in
impervious tarpaulin, also well tied. He was on the point of pulling
open the folds at one end, when a light coloured thread of something,
hanging on the outside, arrested his eye. He put his hand upon it; it
felt stringy, and adhered to his fingers. ‘Hold the light close,’ he
said.
She held it close. He raised his hand to the glass, and they both peered
at an almost intangible filament he held between his finger and thumb.
It was a long hair; the hair of a woman.
‘God! I couldn’t believe it--no, I couldn’t believe it!’ the detective
whispered, horror-struck. ‘And I have lost the man for the present
through my unbelief. Let’s get into a sheltered place.... Now wait a
minute whilst I prove it.’
He thrust his hand into his waistcoat pocket, and withdrew thence a
minute packet of brown paper. Spreading it out he disclosed, coiled
in the middle, another long hair. It was the hair the clerk’s wife had
found on Manston’s pillow nine days before the Carriford fire. He held
the two hairs to the light: they were both of a pale-brown hue. He laid
them parallel and stretched out his arms: they were of the same length
to a nicety. The detective turned to Anne.
‘It is the body of his first wife,’ he said quietly. ‘He murdered her,
as Mr. Springrove and the rector suspected--but how and when, God only
knows.’
‘And I!’ exclaimed Anne Seaway, a probable and natural sequence of
events and motives explanatory of the whole crime--events and
motives shadowed forth by the letter, Manston’s possession of it, his
renunciation of Cytherea, and instalment of herself--flashing upon her
mind with the rapidity of lightning.
‘Ah--I see,’ said the detective, standing unusually close to her: and
a handcuff was on her wrist. ‘You must come with me, madam. Knowing as
much about a secret murder as God knows is a very suspicious thing: it
doesn’t make you a goddess--far from it.’ He directed the bull’s-eye
into her face.
‘Pooh--lead on,’ she said scornfully, ‘and don’t lose your principal
actor for the sake of torturing a poor subordinate like me.’
He loosened her hand, gave her his arm, and dragged her out of the
grove--making her run beside him till they had reached the rectory. A
light was burning here, and an auxiliary of the detective’s awaiting
him: a horse ready harnessed to a spring-cart was standing outside.
‘You have come--I wish I had known that,’ the detective said to his
assistant, hurriedly and angrily. ‘Well, we’ve blundered--he’s gone--you
should have been here, as I said! I was sold by that woman, Miss
Aldclyffe--she watched me.’ He hastily gave directions in an undertone
to this man. The concluding words were, ‘Go in to the rector--he’s up.
Detain Miss Aldclyffe. I, in the meantime, am driving to Casterbridge
with this one, and for help. We shall be sure to have him when it gets
light.’
He assisted Anne into the vehicle, and drove off with her. As they went,
the clear, dry road showed before them, between the grassy quarters at
each side, like a white riband, and made their progress easy. They came
to a spot where the highway was overhung by dense firs for some distance
on both sides. It was totally dark here.
There was a smash; and a rude shock. In the very midst of its length, at
the point where the road began to drop down a hill, the detective
drove against something with a jerk which nearly flung them both to the
ground.
The man recovered himself, placed Anne on the seat, and reached out
his hand. He found that the off-wheel of his gig was locked in that of
another conveyance of some kind.
‘Hoy!’ said the officer.
Nobody answered.
‘Hoy, you man asleep there!’ he said again.
No reply.
‘Well, that’s odd--this comes of the folly of travelling without
gig-lamps because you expect the dawn.’ He jumped to the ground and
turned on his lantern.
There was the gig which had obstructed him, standing in the middle of
the road; a jaded horse harnessed to it, but no human being in or near
the vehicle.
‘Do you know whose gig this is?’ he said to the woman.
‘No,’ she said sullenly. But she did recognize it as the steward’s.
‘I’ll swear it’s Manston’s! Come, I can hear it by your tone. However,
you needn’t say anything which may criminate you. What forethought
the man must have had--how carefully he must have considered possible
contingencies! Why, he must have got the horse and gig ready before he
began shifting the body.’
He listened for a sound among the trees. None was to be heard but the
occasional scamper of a rabbit over the withered leaves. He threw the
light of his lantern through a gap in the hedge, but could see nothing
beyond an impenetrable thicket. It was clear that Manston was not many
yards off, but the question was how to find him. Nothing could be done
by the detective just then, encumbered as he was by the horse and Anne.
If he had entered the thicket on a search unaided, Manston might have
stepped unobserved from behind a bush and murdered him with the
greatest ease. Indeed, there were such strong reasons for the exploit in
Manston’s circumstances at that moment that without showing cowardice,
his pursuer felt it hazardous to remain any longer where he stood.
He hastily tied the head of Manston’s horse to the back of his own
vehicle, that the steward might be deprived of the use of any means of
escape other than his own legs, and drove on thus with his prisoner to
the county-town. Arrived there, he lodged her in the police-station, and
then took immediate steps for the capture of Manston.