I TELL THE TRUTH
My first thought, after that ghastly discovery, was to run to the outer
door and close it. After that, the mere coming back into the room was an
effort; I was afraid of that grim thing lying there, stark and still,
with the knife sticking in its breast--afraid most of all of what it
suggested.
For I saw now that a hatred greater and deeper than mine had pursued
this man, and had struck him down before my slower vengeance could reach
him. As I stood in the room, in that silence greater than any silence I
had known before, I realized that all that I had feared, and all that I
had fought against had happened, after all: the boy had been here before
me, and had struck down his enemy. There was no doubt about that at all:
all the precautions Murray Olivant had taken had availed him nothing.
Surely and resolutely young Arnold Millard had tracked him down, and had
killed him, as he had sworn to do.
I stood there by the table for what seemed a long time, wondering what I
should do. For now the instinct to cover up this crime was stronger in
me than it would have been had the man been struck down by my own hands.
In a pitiful fashion I knew the business, and had paid the penalty of it
before; I should have gone into it, and indeed had meant to go into it,
with my eyes open, knowing well the desperate risk I ran. But with the
boy it was different; he was only poor Charlie Avaline again, of twenty
years before, who had flung himself upon this man in sheer bitter rage,
and without thought of what he must pay for the blow.
I looked about the room. A chair had been overturned, and I guessed that
Murray Olivant had made something of a struggle with his murderer, but
had had no chance really to defend himself. The candle I had seen
knocked over seemed to suggest that the man who had struck the blow had
knocked over the light, in sheer horror of that dying face staring up at
him: that seemed natural enough. There was nothing else disturbed; a
glass upon the table held a little whisky and soda still, and on the rim
of it were to be seen the impression of the lips of the drinker. The
cigar that had burnt its way into the table-cloth had long since gone
out. The whole place was unnaturally still.
I stood there looking down at the dead man; for if the truth be told I
dared not put the table between us; there was an uncanny feeling in me
that he might stir, and get up, and come towards me--dead, and yet
moving--with that knife sticking out of him. I kept near him, that I
might be sure where he was, and above all that he was still. And I began
to calculate the chances again--not for myself this time, but for the
boy.
For in this, of course, I had the advantage of a dreadful experience. I
seemed to know that Arnold Millard would strike down his man without
fear of any consequences--without thought of any penalty he might have
to pay. That done, he would walk out of the place, and would take his
way through the streets, not caring greatly what happened to him. I had
done that, ever so many years before; and therein I had been mistaken. I
had walked straight into the arms of those who waited for me; I had not
cared. But this boy _must_ care; in a sense, he must be saved from
himself. There was no one now that could guide him out of the labyrinth
into which he had gone but myself; I only knew where the hammers were
going, and where the scaffold was being built, with its black arm
pointing to the grave; I only could meet him on that road, and from
bitter experience turn him aside, and show him another secret road to
travel--a road by which he might escape. I blessed God for my knowledge
then.
In the dread silence of the room I found myself addressing the dead man;
leaning over the table to look down at him fearfully, as though he could
hear me.
"It may be that _you_ will save him, after all," I whispered. "You have
hidden yourself here--you are an unknown man; they cannot find out
anything about you. If he is silent, it may happen that no one will ever
suspect. But will he be silent?--that is the point. Or will he feel, in
a cooler moment, that this deed cuts him off for ever from those for
whose sake it was done. What will he do?"
Once again I found myself counting and calculating the chances--not for
myself, but for another this time. In some strange fashion the boy must
have tracked Murray Olivant to this place; must have struck him down;
and must now be wandering, with that brand of Cain upon him, fighting
the desperate battle with himself that a man must fight who has in one
moment put himself outside the sphere of ordinary things; and so is
hiding and dodging in a crowded world to escape.
I remembered that certain steamer tickets had been bought, in order to
carry out that deception which had after all been useless; I knew that
those tickets must be in the possession of the dead man. With the
cowardice of one who puts off what he knows to be inevitable until the
last moment, I searched everywhere for them about the room--looking on
the mantelshelf, and in a small new portmanteau in the inner
room--everywhere but where I knew instinctively they must be. Then at
last, when there was nothing else to be done, I turned to the man
himself, and knelt beside him.
Even as I did so I raised my head, and listened. The night was very
still and windless; there was not a sound anywhere about the house. But
I had distinctly heard the scrape of a footstep on the landing
outside--that, and the movement of some one against the door. I got up
very slowly and stealthily from my knees, and suddenly blew out the
candle; then I felt my way to the door of the room, and stood listening
again.
There was a small lobby outside this room, and at the further side of it
the door leading to the staircase. While I stood there, I distinctly
heard some one pressing against the door: heard the heavy breathing of
some one who was evidently striving to peer through the keyhole. I stood
perfectly still in the darkness, and listened; heard cautious footsteps
moving away from the door, and then with greater confidence going more
loudly down the stairs. And I knew instinctively that the murderer had
been there, and had gone away again.
There had been a sudden thought in my mind for a moment that I would
follow him; would overtake him, and so, coming face to face with him,
make him understand that I knew the truth. With that understanding there
might have come the knowledge that I was his friend, who had suffered
just as he must be suffering now, and who was ready and willing to help
him. But that thought was gone as quickly as it had come; I felt that I
should only be met with furious denials; I knew that I must keep my
knowledge to myself for the present.
It was difficult work going back into that room, and standing there
fumbling to get a light. But I accomplished it at last, and once more
went upon my knees beside the dead man, and began to fumble dreadfully
in his pockets for the tickets. They were easily found, because the man
seemed to have nothing else of any value in his pockets at all; he had
carried out what he had promised, in that he had destroyed all marks of
identification. So with the tickets in my hand I sat down on a chair
(still keeping him well in view, lest he should dreadfully come to life
again), and thought about what I had to do.
I fitted the thing together like a puzzle. Murray Olivant on the sea, on
board the Eaglet; Murray Olivant so far accounted for, for some
considerable time at least. On the other hand, Murray Olivant here as an
unknown man--dead by an unknown hand. The first thing to be done
obviously was to get rid of the tickets. For the present I thrust them
into my own pocket, meaning to destroy them at the first opportunity.
Then I went carefully through the rooms, to be certain that there was
nothing by which Olivant could be identified. I found, as I had
expected, that there was no scrap of clothing anywhere that was marked;
everything was of that newer cheaper kind that he had purchased for the
better carrying out of his trick. I had left the most dreadful task to
the last; and that was to examine the knife.
I had not the courage to pull it out; I took the candle from the table,
and bent down to examine it. It was a knife not unlike that which I
carried; it had been well worn, but was a powerful weapon, of the sort
carried by sailors. I looked at it carefully, and was relieved to find
that there were no distinguishing marks upon the handle: it was a common
thing, such as the boy might have bought for a few shillings, just as I
had bought the one that was slung about my waist.
I had done all that it was possible for me to do, and I now prepared for
departure. I extinguished the candle, and got to the door; stood
listening for a moment, in the fear that that visitor of a little time
before might have returned, and might be waiting. But there was no
sound, and after a moment or two I opened the door, and peered out. No
one there, and the house wrapped in silence.
Emboldened by that, I pulled the door wide, and stepped out, and closed
it behind me. I turned to put my hand against it, to be certain that it
was fastened, and recoiled with a cry. For there was a man standing
there, flat against the wall at one side of the door, looking at me. It
was Jervis Fanshawe.
"What--what's the matter?" I asked hoarsely.
He grinned at me; his voice when he spoke was the mere thread of a
whisper. "Nothing--nothing at all," he said. "How's our friend?" He
jerked his head towards the closed door as he spoke.
"He--he's all right," I faltered, stooping to fumble with the lock for a
moment, the better to hide my face. "Tired--gone to sleep."
Jervis Fanshawe moved away from me to the head of the stairs; peered
over there down into the darkness below for a moment or two in silence.
Then he turned swiftly, and laid his hand on my arm, and without looking
at me began to pull me towards the stairs. "Come away," he
whispered--"come away!"
I was halfway down the stairs before I realized what he meant, or what
he thought. And then in a moment it flashed upon me that he knew in his
own mind that Murray Olivant was dead, and believed that I had killed
him. I had seen that thought growing in his mind when he had spoken to
me about what my feelings must have been when I had killed Gavin
Hockley; I knew now that the man was absolutely certain as to what had
happened, and that he had fastened the crime upon me. For a moment I
stopped on the stairs, and looked at him with a momentary feeling of
dismay in my heart--momentary only, because the next instant I realized
that this was, after all, the best thing that could happen. He might say
or do anything, so far as I was concerned; it would be like flogging a
dead man; my only dread had been that he might fasten the crime upon the
right pair of shoulders.
"Why do you stare at me like that?" I asked.
"Was I staring?" he asked, with that grin again stealing over his
features. "I was only thinking," he added; and then, dropping his voice
to a whisper, he asked, as he glanced up the stairs towards the door we
had left: "Tell me--does he sleep soundly?"
"I suppose so," I said hoarsely; and turned and went down the stairs,
with Fanshawe following. He spoke no further words; as I strode on
through the streets he came after me at a sort of trot--ever keeping a
little behind me and at my elbow.
Knowing what I knew, and guessing that he had put that fearful
interpretation upon my words, I found him presently to be a very ghost
of a man, coming along always with that soft footfall just behind me.
Once or twice I stopped on some pretext; but he always stopped too, and
would not be shaken off. And so at last we came to that lodging down by
the river, and were admitted by the girl Moggs. While we stood for a
moment in the little dingy passage of the house, the girl jerked her
head towards the stairs, and said, without looking at us--
"'E's up there."
Then she disappeared into her own quarters. I could not understand what
she meant; I was puzzling my brains to know who could possibly have
called upon us, or what fresh disaster this might mean, when I became
aware of a sudden change that had come over my companion. He was leaning
against the wall, mouthing and shivering, and plucking at his lips, and
staring towards the staircase. I looked back at him, and called--
"What's wrong with you? What are you afraid of?"
He came towards me, edging along the wall of the passage until he could
lay his hand upon mine and grip me. "Didn't you hear what she said?" he
whispered. "He's up there--waiting for us! Don't you understand, you
fool, that he'd come quicker than we could; didn't you think of that?"
The sheer terror in the man's face unnerved me; I found myself gripping
him, as if I, too, had suddenly grown afraid.
"What the devil do you mean?" I whispered. "It's some chance caller.
Don't be a fool!"
I was shaken to my very soul; but I went on up the stairs, looking back,
to find him following more slowly. I saw that he was ready, at a chance
word or gesture, to go tumbling down the stairs again, and screaming out
into the night. I hesitated for a moment at the door of the room, and
opened it, and went in. Standing before the cheerless hearth was the man
Dawkins.
I glanced over my shoulder, to see a ghastly face coming round the
door--a face that changed in a moment from terror to relief--from relief
to a sort of childish rage. Jervis Fanshawe came into the room a little
blusteringly, and scowled at the visitor.
"What do you want here at this time of night?" he demanded. "Startling
people--and making them think---- What do you want?"
Dawkins stared at this hitherto humble man in some amazement. "Don't be
insolent," he said at last. "I want to find Murray Olivant."
"What do you want with him?" snapped Jervis Fanshawe, before I could say
a word. "And why do you seek him here?"
"Because I can't find him at his rooms," retorted Dawkins. "The place is
shut up, and apparently deserted; even his servant has gone. What's the
mystery?"
"There is no mystery," I said slowly. "Mr. Murray Olivant has gone on a
voyage----"
"Yes, yes; on a voyage," corroborated Fanshawe eagerly. "That's true
enough."
"He sails to-morrow on the _Eaglet_, bound for the Mediterranean," I
went on. "I am to join him--to sail with him."
"Strange that I've heard nothing about it," muttered Dawkins, looking
from one to the other of us. "I think I can guess what has happened,
however; our friend has got hold of the girl, and is slipping away
quietly with her--eh?"
"I couldn't say," said Fanshawe. "In any case, I wouldn't trouble about
it, if I were you; it's not worth while."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Dawkins, with a grin. "Murray Olivant
mustn't imagine for a moment that he is going to use me as he likes, and
then fling me aside, without so much as a 'Thank you.' I don't believe
in this sailing business; I don't believe he's going at all. There's
some trick in this."
"There's no trick," exclaimed Fanshawe eagerly. "He sails to-morrow, and
Tinman here goes with him."
I confess I was a little surprised at this eager advocacy of my cause on
the part of Fanshawe; I could not understand it. I firmly believed that
he thought I had killed the man Olivant; but I should have imagined he
was the last person to endeavour to shield me. Yet here he was carrying
on that trick that had been practised on every one, and assisting me to
hide Murray Olivant away. I could not understand it.
"Tell me one thing," persisted Dawkins. "Does he take the girl with
him?"
I answered immediately: "No; he does not take her. He does not even know
where she is, and he has decided to give up the whole business."
"I can't understand it, and I don't believe it," said Dawkins, moving
towards the door. "You're hiding something from me."
I slipped my hand into my pocket, and drew out the envelope containing
the steamer tickets. Without a word I pulled out the tickets, and showed
them to him. "I am to meet my master early to-morrow morning with these,
and to take him on board. Does that convince you?"
He looked at the tickets and at me; something in my manner evidently
impressed him. "Well," he said, "it's no affair of mine--and he was
always an erratic sort of fellow. But why couldn't he have let me know
that he was going?"
"You forget," I reminded him, "that you have been endeavouring to get a
large sum of money out of him."
"There's something in that," he replied, with a laugh. "I don't like
being made a fool of; I hope the infernal vessel will blow up, or sink,
or something, with the pair of you on board."
"Thank you, sir," I responded quietly, as he went out, slamming the door
after him.
Jervis Fanshawe was seated on the bed, rubbing his hands, and laughing
softly to himself. "That was well done, Charlie; that was excellently
done," he said, in a hoarse whisper. "You're a clever fellow, Charlie;
you've covered up the traces beautifully."
"I don't understand you," I replied coldly. "There are no traces to
cover up, beyond those we know already. Murray Olivant is in hiding----"
"That's it--in hiding," he whispered, nodding his head many times, and
sucking in his lips, and rubbing his long bony hands together. "In
hiding's the word. And he'll sleep soundly to-night--won't he, Charlie?"
"I imagine so," I replied, looking at him steadily. "Why do you insist
upon that point?"
"Do I insist upon it, Charlie?" he asked innocently. "Not at all--not at
all. Only I like to think of him in those snug rooms of his in Lincoln's
Inn Fields--sleeping well--sleeping as long as he likes, Charlie--eh?"
There was that between us which seemed to make it necessary that my eyes
should seek his, and that his should be fastened on mine. Even when I
moved round the room, I saw that his eyes followed me. And I knew what
was in his mind. I would not trust him; I would never trust him again;
for the sake of the boy who had done this thing in a moment of madness,
I must let Fanshawe think what he would.
"We'd better sleep," I said, as I turned the key in the door. "And, as
for Murray Olivant--let him sleep."
"Quite right, Charlie--we can leave him--to sleep soundly," he said,
nodding his head at me. "He's safe enough."
He stretched himself on the bed, and seemed to fall asleep at once. I
had curled myself up in a corner, and was slowly nodding to slumber,
when I thought he moved; I asked sleepily if he wanted anything. There
was no reply, and the only sound in the room was his steady breathing. I
decided sleepily that everything might well wait until the morrow; my
head dropped forward on my breast, and I slept heavily.
I had no recollection of anything during the night, save that it seemed
to me once that some one touched me, and that I fretfully begged to be
left alone. But I awoke in the morning to find the bed unoccupied, and
only myself in the room. Fanshawe was gone. I wondered about it a
little, and yet was relieved to be rid of him.
I had got clearly in my mind what I was to do. I wanted to know that
Barbara and the girl were safe at Hammerstone Market; I wanted to be
certain that the girl was back again in her father's house. Always when
I got to that point I stopped, and my thoughts refused to travel
further. For while Murray Olivant was safely out of the way, never to
trouble the child's peace again, there always came on top of that the
shuddering remembrance that the boy had killed him, and that only
afterwards, if he was the boy I knew him to be, would there come upon
him the knowledge that with that knife thrust he had killed not only
Murray Olivant, but all hope of any love story with Barbara. That was
one of the problems I had to solve; to know what the boy would do.
I was certain in my own mind that Barbara, at least, would keep her
promise to me, and would take the girl to Hammerstone Market. It seemed
at once to become vitally necessary that I should see Barbara--should
let her understand, in however vague a fashion, what had happened, and
should get the clear light of her reason upon it. Up to a certain point
I had taken my way strongly, without fear and without question; but now
I had come to a point when I was afraid to move--afraid to take any step
that might involve young Arnold Millard. One man I feared, and feared
greatly; and that man was Jervis Fanshawe.
I knew he would not hesitate for a moment to denounce me, if it served
his purpose to do so. I knew that he believed that I had killed Murray
Olivant, and I did not know how far that old vengeance with which he had
pursued me before would stir him to pursue me again. I did not like,
above all things, that secret creeping away in the night on some unknown
errand.
Not that I feared for myself; but that I thought I knew enough of the
boy to know that, if another were threatened with the penalty of his
crime, he would not hesitate to step forward and tell the truth. And in
that case all that I had striven so hard to do would be lost, and the
boy's fate would be that of a certain poor Charlie Avaline, long since
forgotten.
I hurried to Barbara's lodging, only to find, as I had anticipated, that
she and the girl had gone. From there I went straight to the railway
station, and took train for Hammerstone Market--still with that feeling
in my mind that I must know, before everything else, what the boy was
going to do.
In the train I remembered that the vessel on which Murray Olivant was
supposed to sail with me started that morning; I wondered what was going
to happen in that direction, or whether it was already known that we had
not sailed at all. The thought of that sent my hand to my pocket in
search of the tickets; I found that they were gone.
I searched every pocket wildly, striving as I did so to remember exactly
when I had had them last, and under what circumstances. I remembered
distinctly taking them from the pocket of the dead man and putting them
into my own; knew--or thought I knew--that I had had them at the time
when Dawkins doubted my statement about Olivant. But had I produced them
then for his inspection, or had I merely told him that I had them? I
could not be sure of that; I went over and over the conversation of the
previous night, only to find myself more and more muddled and vague
about it. One dreadful thought came to me: had I by any chance dropped
them in that room in Lincoln's Inn Fields where Murray Olivant lay
murdered?
I was making my way out of the station, when I felt a quick touch on my
arm; I looked round sharply, and saw young Arnold Millard beside me. I
suppose my face must have shown in a moment the fear that was in my
heart for him, and for his safety; but there was a fine assumption of
astonishment in his tones when he spoke to me.
"Why, Tinman, what's the matter with you?" he demanded. "You look as if
you'd seen a ghost. What's wrong?"
"What should be wrong, sir?" I asked, as we walked together out of the
station. "Have you any news of your brother--of Mr. Olivant?" I looked
at him fully, and wondered that his eyes did not shrink from mine.
"The best of news," he exclaimed. "He's shown the white feather, Tinman;
he's made up his mind to leave the country. I'm not sorry that he's
slipped through my fingers; he wasn't worth killing, was he?"
"No; God knows he wasn't worth killing," I said passionately.
"His flat is shut up, and I'm told he sails this morning; the people in
the house even knew the name of the vessel--the _Eaglet_. I wouldn't
believe it at first, but the housekeeper opened the doors for me, and
let me go all over the rooms. Everything was packed up or covered up;
he's going to be away a long time, I should think."
I wondered how he could lie in such a cheerful fashion; my heart ached
at the thought that I had sacrificed myself for such a man as this. Of
course, I understood that he had a right to protect himself, and to
suspect everyone who might by any possibility guess his secret; but I
would have given anything then to have heard one word from him that even
hinted at the truth--to have seen in his eyes the faintest suggestion of
fear. I began to understand that in the event of Murray Olivant being
identified, that faithful servant Tinman might well hang, after all, for
what he had not done.
"And so I've come down here, to see if I can get any news of poor
Barbara," he went on. "I've a shrewd suspicion that I may hear something
of her; I don't think Murray would have bolted like that, unless he had
found that the game was up, do you?
"Miss Barbara is down here--with her father," I said.
He turned to me quickly. "How do you know that?" he asked in surprise.
"I know it--that is all," I said.
Presently he found my slow steps too slow for his impatience; he excused
himself, and hurried away at a great rate in the direction of the house,
leaving me walking more slowly in his wake, and looking sadly after him.
For this was different from anything I had anticipated; this was but a
mean slipping-out of the business, with nothing heroic about it. I felt
sorry for the child who was to trust her life to him.
It was with a great sense of relief that, as I came nearer to the house,
I met the elder Barbara. She stopped for a moment on seeing me, and then
came towards me rapidly, with her hands clasped at her breast, looking
at me. Only then did I remember, miserably enough, on what errand I had
set out when last I had seen her, and with what threat on my lips. I
realized that my troubles were not over.
"My dear, you have news for me?" she whispered, looking straight into my
eyes. "Tell me everything."
"First tell me if you have seen the boy--young Millard?"
"Yes, I've seen him; he's happy enough now. I saw him go to Barbara;
there seemed a perfect understanding between them in a moment. They
trust each other so completely."
"They trust each other so completely," I replied mechanically.
"Well--perhaps that is well. Now for my news, Barbara. What would you
wish me to tell you?"
"The truth," she whispered, still looking at me intently.
I thought of the boy, with the brand of Cain upon him, who was at that
moment doubtless holding the child of this Barbara in his arms, and
whispering that he loved her; and she trusted him so completely! "You
want the truth?" I responded with a smile. "Then I have no news for
you."
She took me in her arms--there, in that quiet country lane; she spoke to
me, as I knew, out of the depth of her great love for me. "The truth,
Charlie--the truth to me, at least," she pleaded.
I saw that it had come once again to the parting of the ways for us,
just as it had done twenty years before; I knew that for the boy's sake,
and for the sake of the girl who loved him, I must again thrust myself
out of life. For I must lie to this woman, who held me in her arms and
pleaded for the truth. And in giving her that which she must for ever
believe to be the truth, I must wound her again, as I had wounded her
long ago. "You shall know the truth," I said slowly--"if you will
promise to do what I ask. Promise."
"I will promise anything--and everything."
"I went away from you, meaning to kill Murray Olivant," I said, like one
repeating a lesson. "You should know that I do not fail in such a
matter. I have killed him." She clapped her hand upon my lips, and
looked round her quickly; I took the hand, and drew it away, and kissed
it, and went on with what I had to say. "All the world believes that he
sails this morning for the Mediterranean; it is possible that the murder
will not be discovered. That's the truth."
She clung to me, shuddering; she asked me in a whisper what it was that
I wanted her to do.
"Go back to your husband," I said. "It is not he that needs you, so much
as the girl. She needs you more than she ever needed you in her life
before. Will you keep your promise to me?"
"Yes," she said in a whisper, as her arms fell to her sides--"I will go
back to him."
She turned away, and left me standing there, looking after her as she
went.