At Scotland Yard.
Once more on his weary way to London went Karl Andinnian, on the same
weary business that he had gone before; but this time he was
proceeding direct to the place he had hitherto shunned--Scotland Yard.
The extreme step, taken by the detective Tatton, in searching the
Maze, had alarmed Karl beyond measure. True, the unfortunate fugitive,
hiding there, had managed to elude detection: but who could say that
he would be able to do so another time, or how often these men of the
law might choose to go in? The very fact of their not being actually
in search of Sir Adam, but of a totally different individual, made it
seem all the more unbearably cruel.
In Mrs. Grey's dire distress and perplexity, she had sent that same
night for Karl--after the search--and he heard the whole that had
taken place. Adam confessed he did not know what was to be done, or
how avert the fate--recapture--that seemed closely impending; and Rose
almost fell on her knees before Karl, imploring him with tears to try
and save her husband from the danger. Karl took his remorse home with
him: remorse arising from the knowledge that _he_ had brought all this
about, he, himself, in his insane inquiries after Salter: and, after
much anxious consideration, he resolved to go on the morrow to
Scotland Yard.
It was past noon when he reached his destination. After he had stated
confidentially the nature of his business--that it was connected with
the search after Philip Salter, then being carried on at Foxwood by
Detective Tatton--he was told that it was Mr. Superintendent Game who
must see him upon the point: but that at present the superintendent
was engaged. Karl had to wait: and was kept waiting a considerable
time.
Could Karl's eyes have penetrated through two walls and an intervening
room, he might have been greatly astonished to see the person with
whom the superintendent was occupied. It was no other than Tatton
himself. For the detective, taking a night after the search to think
over matters, just as Karl had done, had come to the determination of
placing the history of his doings at Foxwood before his superiors, and
to leave with them the decision whether he should go on with his
search, or abandon it. Accordingly, he also had proceeded to London
that morning, but by an earlier train; and he was now closeted with
Mr. Superintendent Game--who had given him his original instructions,
and had, specially, the Salter affair in hand--and was laying before
him a succinct narration of facts, together with his various
suspicions and his bafflings. Before the interview was over, the
superintendent was as well acquainted with the Maze, its rumours and
its mysteries and with sundry other items of Foxwood gossip, as Tatton
himself could be.
"A gentleman waiting--had been waiting some time--to see Mr. Game on
the Foxwood business," was the interruption that was first brought to
them: and both Mr. Game and Tatton felt somewhat surprised thereby.
What gentleman could be engaged on the Foxwood business, except
themselves?
"Who is it?" asked the superintendent. And a card was handed in.
"Sir Karl Andinnian."
A moment's pause to revolve matters, and then the superintendent
issued his fiat.
"See him in five minutes."
The five minutes were occupied with Tatton; but, he was safely away
ere they had expired, carrying with him his orders to wait; and Sir
Karl Andinnian was shown in. The superintendent and the visitor met
for the first time, and glanced at each other with some curiosity. The
officer saw, in the brother of the noted and unfortunate criminal, a
pale, refined, and essentially gentlemanly man, with a sad but
attractive face that seemed to tell of sorrow; the other saw a spare
man of middle height, who in age might have been his father, and whose
speech and manners betokened a cultivation as good as his own.
Taking the seat offered him, Karl entered at once upon his business.
Explaining shortly and truthfully the unfortunate suspicion on his own
part, that had led to his inquiries about Salter of Mr. Burtenshaw,
and to the subsequent dispatch of Tatton to Foxwood. He concealed
nothing; not even the slight foundation for those suspicions--merely
the having seen the name of Philip Salter in a pocket-book that was in
the possession of Philip Smith; and related his recent explanation
with Smith; when he learnt that he and Salter were cousins. Karl told
it all: and the officer saw, and believed, that he was telling it
truly. Karl then went on to relate how he had himself sought an
interview with Tatton on his last return from London--whither he had
gone to try and convince Mr. Burtenshaw that it was not Salter; that
he had learnt from Tatton then that his suspicions were directed to a
house called the Maze, as the place of Salter's concealment, and that
he, Sir Karl, had assured Tatton on his word of honour as a gentleman
that it was altogether a mistaken assumption, for that Salter was not
at the Maze, and never had been there. He had believed that Tatton was
convinced by what he said: instead of which, he had taken the extreme
and, under the circumstances, most unjustifiable step of proceeding to
the house with a search warrant and two policemen, to the terror of
the lady inhabiting it, Mrs. Grey, and her two old servants. It was to
report this to Tatton's superiors at headquarters that he had now
come up from Foxwood, Sir Karl added; not, he emphatically said, to
complain of Mr. Tatton or to get him reprimanded, for no doubt the
man, in doing what he had done, had believed it was but his duty: but
to request that instructions might be given him to leave Mrs. Grey in
tranquillity for the future. She, feeling much outraged and insulted
by the suspicion that she could have a common criminal like Philip
Salter concealed in her home, had sent for him, Sir Karl, as her
landlord, to beg him to protect her if in his power, and to secure her
from further molestation.
Mr. Superintendent Game listened to Sir Karl's narrative as
attentively and with as much apparent interest as though it comprised
information that he had never in all his life heard of: whereas, in
point of fact, Tatton had just been going over the same facts with
him, or nearly the same. He admitted to Sir Karl that it no doubt did
seem to Mrs. Grey an unjustifiable step, an unaccountable intrusion;
if indeed Salter were not concealed there and she knew nothing of him.
"I assure you, as I assured Tatton, that she does not," spoke Karl,
with almost painful earnestness. "There is not an iota of foundation
for supposing Salter ever was at Foxwood; certainly he was never at
the Maze."
"Tatton is an experienced officer, Sir Karl. You may depend upon it
that he had good reasons for what he did."
"That he fancied he had: I admit that. But they were utterly
groundless. I should have thought that had any one lady, above
another, been exempt from suspicion of any kind, it was Mrs. Grey. She
lives a perfectly retired life at the Maze during her husband's
absence, giving offence to none. To suppose she would allow the
fugitive Salter, a man whom she never knew or saw, to be concealed
within her domains is worse than preposterous."
"It is hazardous to answer so far for any one, Sir Karl," was the
rejoinder--and Karl thought he detected a faint smile on the speaker's
lips. "Especially for a woman. The best of them have their tricks and
turns."
"I can answer for Mrs. Grey."
Mr. Superintendent Game, whose elbow as he faced Sir Karl was leaning
on a desk-table, took it off and fell to pushing together some papers,
as though in abstraction. He was no doubt taking time mentally to fit
in some portions of Karl's narrative with the information possessed by
himself. Karl waited a minute and then went on.
"I am sure that this lady would be willing to make a solemn affidavit
that she knows nothing of Salter; and that he is not, and never has
been, concealed there; if by so doing it would secure her exemption
from intrusion for the future."
"Yes, no doubt," said the officer somewhat absently. "Sir Karl
Andinnian," he added, turning briskly to face him again after another
pause, "I assume that your own part in this business was confined to
the sole fact of your entering on the misapprehension of taking your
agent Smith to be Salter."
"That's all. But do you not see how I feel myself to be compromised:
since it was my unfortunate endeavour to set the doubt at rest, by
applying to Burtenshaw, that has originated all the mischief and
brought the insult on Mrs. Grey!"
"Of course. But for that step of yours we should have heard nothing of
Salter in connection with Foxwood."
Karl maintained a calm exterior: but he could have ground his teeth as
he listened. It was too true.
"Then, with that one exception, Sir Karl, I am right in assuming that
you personally hold no other part or interest in this affair, as
regards Salter?"
"As regards Salter? None whatever."
"Well now," resumed the superintendent, in a confidential kind of
tone, "we can talk at our ease for a minute. Does it not strike you,
Sir Karl, as an impartial and impassioned looker-on, that there is
something rather curious in the affair, taking one thing with
another?"
"I fail to catch your meaning, sir," replied Karl, gazing at the
superintendent. "I confess no such idea has occurred to me. Curious in
what way?"
"We shall come to that. Philip Smith has been your agent about six
months, I believe."
"About that."
"Whence did you have him? Where did he live before?"
"I really do not know. My mother, the late Mrs. Andinnian, who was
occupying Foxwood Court during my absence abroad, engaged him. She
became ill herself, was unable to attend to anything, and deemed it
well to employ someone to look after my interests."
"Report runs in Foxwood--all kinds of gossip have come up to me from
the place." The superintendent broke off to add--"that Smith is only
your honorary agent, Sir Karl; that he gives it out he is an old
friend of the Andinnian family."
"I can assure you that Smith is my paid agent. He has a house to live
in, and takes his salary quarterly."
"The house is exactly opposite the Maze gates?"
"Yes," said Karl, beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable at the
drift the conversation appeared to be taking.
"Is there any truth in the statement that your family knew him in
earlier days? You will see in a minute, Sir Karl, why I ask you all
this. I conclude there is not."
"I understood my mother to imply in her last illness that she had
known something of him: but I was not sure that I caught her meaning
correctly, and she was too ill for me to press the question. I had
never heard of any Smith myself, and the chances were that I
misunderstood her. He makes himself useful about the estate, and that
is all I have to look to."
"Report says also--pardon me for recurring to it, Sir Karl--that he
makes himself a very easy kind of agent; seems to do as he likes, work
or play, and spends most of his time smoking in his front garden,
exchanging salutations with the passers-by and watching his
neighbour's opposite gate."
Had it been to save his life, Karl Andinnian could not have helped the
change that passed over his countenance. What was coming? He strove to
be cool and careless, poor fellow, and smiled frankly.
"I fancy he is rather idle--and given to smoke too much. But he does
well what he has to do for me, for all that. Mine is not a large
estate, as you may be aware, and Sir Joseph left it in first-rate
condition. There is very little work for an agent."
"Well, now, I will ask you a last question, Sir Karl. Do you think
Smith's residence at Foxwood is in any way connected with the Maze!"
"Connected with the Maze!" echoed Sir Karl, his face never betraying
the uneasiness that his beating and terrified heart was beginning to
feel all too keenly.
"That is, connected with its tenants."
"In what way would it be possible?"
"Look here. Philip Smith presents himself at Foxwood Court about
six months ago, soliciting the agency of your estates from Mrs.
Andinnian--as there is little doubt he did so present himself to her,
and solicit. Now it was a very singular thing for him to do,
considering that his previous life (as I happen to know) had in no way
whatever qualified him for the situation. He knew no more of land or
the duties of a land-agent than does this inkstand on my table. Why
did he attempt to take such a place?"
"For the want of something else to do, probably," replied Karl. "He
told me himself the other day, that his cousin's fall ruined him also,
by causing him to be turned from his situation. As to the duties he
has to perform for me, a child might be at home in them in a week."
"Granted. Let us go on. Mr. Smith's installation at your place as
agent was closely followed by the occupancy of the Maze, Mrs. Grey and
her servants arriving as its tenants. Was it not so, Sir Karl?"
"I--think it was," assented Karl, appearing to be recalling the past
to his memory, and feeling himself in a bath of horror as he saw that
the all-powerful man before him, powerful to know, to rule, and to
act, was quite at home behind the scenes.
"Well, I cannot help thinking that the one may have been connected
with the other; that Smith's appearance at your place, and the
immediately-following occupancy of the Maze, may have been, so to say,
connecting links in the same chain," continued the superintendent. "A
doubt of it was floating in my mind before I had the honour of seeing
you, Sir Karl: but I failed to detect any adequate cause; there was
none on the surface. You have now supplied that, by telling me who
Smith is--Salter's relative."
"Indeed I cannot understand you," said Karl, turning nevertheless from
hot to cold.
"The Maze is a place--what with its surrounding labyrinth of trees and
its secret passages and outlets--unusually favourable for concealment.
A proscribed man might hide himself there for years and years, and
never be discovered unless suspicion were accidentally drawn on him. I
think the chances are that Salter is there; and that his cousin,
Smith, is keeping guard over him for his protection, while ostensibly
fulfilling only the duties of your agency. They may have discovered in
some way the desirable properties of the Maze and laid their plans to
come to it accordingly."
It was so faithful a picture of what Smith was really doing at
Foxwood--though the one he was watching over was a very different man
from Salter--that Karl Andinnian almost thought some treacherous
necromancy must have been at work. All he could do was, to speak
forcibly against the view, and to declare that there could not be any
foundation for it.
"That is only your opinion against mine, Sir Karl," observed the
superintendent courteously. "You may rely upon it, I think, that the
fact of Salter's being there would be kept from you, of all people."
"Do you forget the slur you would cast on Mrs. Grey?"
"As to that, Salter may be some relative of hers. Even her
husband--even her brother. I remember it was said, at the time his
case fell, that he had one sister. In either case, of course Mrs.
Grey--the name she goes under--would not allow the fact of his
concealment there to transpire to you."
How could Karl meet this? Sitting there, in his perplexity and pain,
he could not see a step before him.
"You have forgotten that Tatton has searched the Maze from roof to
basement, Mr. Superintendent."
"Not at all. It tells nothing. There are no doubt other hidden places
that he did not penetrate to in that first search. At best, it was but
a superficial one."
That "first" search. Was all security slipping from Karl's feet, inch
by inch?
"Believe me, you are wrong," he said; "your notion is an utterly
mistaken one. I assure you on my word of honour, as truly and solemnly
as I shall ever testify to any fact in this world, that Salter is not
within the Maze, that he never has been. Mind you, sir, I _know_ this.
I go over occasionally to see poor Mrs. Grey in her loneliness, and am
in a position to speak positively."
An unmistakable smile sat on the officer's face now. "Ay," he said, "I
have heard of your occasional nocturnal visits to her, Sir Karl. The
young lady is said to be very attractive."
At the first moment, Sir Karl did not detect the covert meaning. It
came to him with a rush of indignation. The superintendent had rarely
seen so haughty a face.
"No offence, Sir Karl. 'Twas but a joke."
"A joke I do not like, sir. I am a married man."
"Est-ce que cela empêche"--the other was beginning: for the conclusion
he had drawn, on the score of Sir Karl's evening visits, was a very
decided one; but Karl put a peremptory stop to the subject. He deemed
the superintendent most offensively familiar and unwarrantably
foolish; and he resented in his angry heart the implied aspersion on
his brother's wife, the true Lady Andinnian, than whom a more modest
and innocent-natured woman did not exist. And it never entered into
the brain of Karl Andinnian to suspect that the same objectionable
joke might have been taken up by people nearer home, even by his own
wife.
The interview came to an end. Karl went away, uncertain whether he had
made sufficient impression, or not, to ensure the Maze against
intrusion for the future. The superintendent did not say anything
decisive, one way or the other, except that the matter must be left
for his consideration. It might all have been well yet, all been well,
but for this new complication, this suspicion rather, touching Smith
and Salter jointly! He, Karl, had given the greatest rise to this, he
and no other, by stating that day that the men were cousins. He asked
himself whether Heaven could be angry with him, for whatever step he
took for good only seemed to lead to mischief and make affairs worse.
One assurance he did carry away with him: that the young lady at the
Maze might rest content: her peace personally should not be molested.
But that was not saying that the house should not be.
After Sir Karl's departure, the superintendent's bell rang and Tatton
was recalled. A long conversation ensued. Matters known were weighed;
matters suspected were looked at: and Mr. Tatton was finally bidden
back to Foxwood.
Karl had gone direct from Scotland Yard to take the train. A fast one,
which speedily conveyed him home. He walked from the station, and was
entering his own gates when Hewitt--who seemed to have been gossiping
at the lodge with the gardener's wife, but who had probably been
lingering about in the hope of meeting his master--accosted him; and
they went up the walk together.
"I am afraid something is amiss at the Maze, sir," began the man,
looking cautiously around and speaking in a low tone.
"Something amiss at the Maze!" echoed Karl, seized with a terror that
he did not attempt to conceal.
"Not _that_, sir; not the worst, thank Heaven! Sir Adam has been taken
ill."
"Hush, Hewitt. No names. Ill in what way I How do you know it?"
"I had been to carry a note for my lady to old Miss Patchett, Sir
Karl. Coming back, Ann Hopley overtook me; she was walking from the
station at a fine rate. Her master had been taken most alarmingly ill,
she said; and at any risk a doctor must be had to him. They did not
dare to call in Mr. Moore, lest he might talk to the neighbours, and
she had been to the station then to telegraph for a stranger."
"Telegraph where!"
"To Basham, sir. For Dr. Cavendish."
Karl drew a deep breath. It seemed to be perplexity on perplexity: and
he saw at once how much danger this step must involve.
"What is the matter with him, Hewitt? Do you know?"
"It was one of those dreadful fainting-fits, sir. But they could not
get him out of it, and for some time thought he was really dead. Mrs.
Grey was nearly beside herself, Ann said, and insisted on having a
doctor. He is better now, sir," added Hewitt, "and I think there's
no need for you to go over unless you particularly wish. I went
strolling about the road, thinking I might hear or see something more,
and when Ann Hopley came to the gate to answer a ring, she told me he
was quite himself again but still in bed. It was the pain made him
faint."
"I cannot think what the pain is," murmured Karl. "Has the doctor
been?"
"I don't think he has yet, Sir Karl."
Karl lifted his hat to rub his aching brow. He saw his wife sitting
under one of the trees, and went forward to join her. The wan, weary
look on her face, growing more wan, more weary, day by day, struck on
him particularly in the waning light of the afternoon.
"Do you do well to sit here, Lucy?" he asked, as he flung himself
beside her, in utter weariness.
"Why should I not sit here?"
"I fancy the dew must be already rising."
"It will not hurt me. And if it did--what would it matter?"
The half reproaching, half indifferent accent in which it was uttered,
served to try him. He knew what the words implied--that existence had,
through him, become a burden to her. His nerves were strung already to
their utmost tension; the trouble at his heart was pressing him sore.
"Don't _you_, by your reproaches, make matters worse for me, Lucy,
to-day. God knows that I have well-nigh more than I can bear."
The strangely-painful tone, so full of unmistakable anguish, aroused
her kindly nature. She turned to him with a sigh.
"I wish I could make things better for both of us, Karl."
"At least, you need not make them worse. What with one thing and
another--"
"Well?" she said, her voice softened, as he paused.
"Nothing lies around me, Lucy, but perplexity and dread and pain. Look
where I will, abroad or at home, there's not as much as a single ray
of light to cheer my spirit, or the faintest reflection of it. You
cannot wonder that I am sometimes tempted to wish I could leave the
world behind me."
"Have you had a pleasant day in town?" she asked, after a little
while.
"No, I have had an unsatisfactory and trying day in all ways. And I
have come home to find more to try me: more dissatisfaction _here_,
more dread abroad. 'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.'
Some of us are destined to realise the truth in ourselves all too
surely."
He looked at his watch, got up, and walked indoors without another
word. Lucy gazed after him with yearning eyes; eyes that seemed to
have some of the perplexity he spoke of in their depths. There were
moments when she failed to understand her husband's moods. This was
one.