THE BARON FINDS A CHAMPION
(_From the Bickerdike MS._)
Who that was present at that scene could ever forget its anguish and
pathos? Its fierce dramatic intensity will remain for all time
indelibly seared on my soul. Could I believe in my friend’s guilt?
Knowing him, it was impossible: and yet that seemingly
incontrovertible evidence as to when the shot was fired? If he had
done it, if he _had_ done it, not his own nature but some fiend
temporarily in possession of it must have directed his hand. But I
would not believe he had done it. I would not, until I had heard him
confess to it with his own lips. However appearances might be against
him, he should find an unshakable ally in me. And if the worst were to
come to the worst, and the trial confirm his guilt beyond dispute,
there would be that yet for me to plead in revision of my former
evidence so cruelly surprised from me, to plead in virtue of my
intimacy with the unhappy boy--that in the moods to which he was
subject he was apt to lose complete control of himself, and to behave
on occasions veritably like a madman. It might mitigate,
extenuate--who could say? But in the meantime I would not believe--not
though the world accused him.
Before he was taken away he and his father met in a room below the
Court. Sir Calvin, coming across the floor after the committal, looked
like a white figure of Death--Death stark, but in motion. He walked
straight on, avoiding nobody; but a little stagger as he passed near
me was eloquent of his true state. I was moved impulsively to hold out
my arm to him, and he took it blindly, and we descended the stairs
together. In a bare vault-like office we found my poor friend. He was
in charge of the two policemen who had arrested him. His deadly pallor
was all gone, and succeeded by a vivid flush. He held out his hand
with a steadfast smiling look.
“Take it or not, sir,” he said.
It was taken, and hard wrung--just that one moment’s
understanding--and the two fell apart.
“Thank you, sir,” said the boy simply. “I did not do it, of course.”
The father laughed; it wrung one to hear him, and to see his face.
“One of your judges, Hughie,” he said, wheezing hilariously--“old
Crosson; you know him--told me not to lose heart--that appearances
weren’t always to be trusted. He ought to know, eh, after three
attempts?”
“I wanted you just to hear me say,” said the other hurriedly, “that
I’m glad it’s come--not the _way_ it has, but the truth. I’ve behaved
like a blackguard, sir, and it’s been weighing on me; you don’t know
how it’s been weighing. It’s been making my life hell for some little
time past. But now you know, and it’s the worst of me--bad enough, but
not the unutterable brute they’d make me out.” He turned to me. “So
they got at you, Viv.,” he said. “Never mind, old boy; you meant the
best.”
“It was an infamous breach of confidence,” I burst out. “It was that
Sergeant led me on.”
“Yes,” said Hugh: “I supposed he was at the bottom of all this. But I
can’t help his witnesses. It was the truth I told.”
“He has betrayed the house,” I said hotly. “He was engaged to serve.”
But to this Sir Calvin, greatly to my surprise and indignation,
demurred, in a hoarse broken way: “If he thought his duty lay this
road, it was his business like an honest man to take it. We want no
absolution on sufferance--eh, Hughie, my boy?”
“No, sir, no. You will see that I am properly advised as to the best
way to go to clear myself. Thank God my mother isn’t alive!”
It was said with the first shadow of a break in his voice, and the
General could not stand it. He gave a little gasp, and turned away,
his fingers working at his moustache.
“She’ll see to it, Hughie,” he said indistinctly, “that--that it’s all
made right. There was never a more truth-loving woman in the world.
But you shall have your advice--for form’s sake--the best that can be
procured.”
“Thank you, sir.”
It was intimated that the interview must end. The two men just faced
one another--an unforgetable look; and then the father turned, and,
rigid as a sleep-walker, passed out of the room without another word.
I lingered behind a moment, just to whisper my friend _bonne chance_;
then hurried after the retreating figure. We entered the car in
silence, and drove off alone together, leaving the household witnesses
to follow later. All the way it must have lain in the mind of the
stiff figure beside me with what other expectations, in what other
company, we had made the outward journey. I thought it best not to
disturb him; and we reached the house without a solitary sentence, I
believe, having passed between us. Once there, Sir Calvin walked
straight into his study, and I saw him no more that day.
What was the true thought in his heart? faith scornful and triumphant,
or some secret misgiving? Who could tell? Perhaps for the first time
some doubts as to his own qualifications as a father were beginning to
move in him, some tragic, self-searching for the seed of what might or
might not be in this “fruit of his blood.” The day stole by on hushed
wings; a sense of still fatality brooded over the house. The
voiceless, almost unpeopled quiet told upon my nerves, and kept me
wandering, aimless and solitary, from room to room. Near evening,
Audrey was sent for by her father. I saw her, and saw her for the
first time since our return, as she disappeared into his study. What
passed between them there one could only surmise, but at least it was
marked by no audible sounds of emotion. In that dead oppression I
would have welcomed even her company; but she never came near me, and
I was left to batten as I would on my own poisonous reflections. They
passed and passed in review, with sickening iteration, the same
wearisome problems--the evidence, my hateful and unwilling share in
it, my friend’s dreadful situation. Against the detective I felt a
bitter animosity. No wonder that, conscious of his treachery to his
employer, as I still persisted in regarding it, his manner had changed
of late, and he had held himself aloof from us. Even that cynical
official fibre, I supposed, could not be entirely insensitive to the
indecency of eating the salt of him he was planning to betray. I was
so wroth with him that I could have wished, if for no other reason
than his discomfiture, to vindicate my friend’s innocence. The thought
sent me harking back once more over familiar ground. If Hugh were
innocent, who was guilty? If another could be proved guilty, or even
reasonably suspect, the whole evidence against the prisoner fell into
discredit. Who, then?
Now, not this overwhelming business itself had been enough to dismiss
wholly from my mind its haunting suspicions regarding the Baron. So
secret, so subtle, so inexplicable, could it still be possible that he
was somehow implicated in the affair? If not, was it not at least
remarkable that it should have coincided with his coming, involved his
servant, been followed by that midnight theft of the paper? And then
suddenly there came to me, with a little shock of the blood, a memory
of our conversation in the keeper’s cottage on the fatal day of the
shoot. How curious he had been then on the subject of poachers, of
their methods, of their proneness to violence on occasion! He had
asked so innocently yet shown such shrewdness in his questions, that
even Orsden had laughingly commented on the discrepancy. And that
mention of the muffling properties of a mist in the matter of a
gunshot! _Why, it was as if he had wished to assure himself of the
adequacy of some precaution already calculated and taken to mislead
and bewilder in a certain issue!_
The thought came upon me like a thunderclap. Was it, could it be
possible that some blackguard poacher had been made the instrument of
a diabolical plot--perhaps that fourth shadowy figure that had never
materialised; perhaps Henstridge himself, who had volunteered the
damning evidence, and whom it would be one’s instinct to mistrust? Le
Sage and Henstridge in collusion! Was it an inspiration? Did I stand
on the threshold of a tremendous discovery? In spite of the feverish
excitement which suddenly possessed me, I could still reason against
my own theory. The motive? What possible motive in murdering an
unoffending servant girl? Again, what time had been the Baron’s in
which to complot so elaborate a crime?
But, supposing it had all been arranged beforehand, before ever he
came? I had not overlooked the mystery attaching to the girl herself.
It might cover, for all one knew, a very labyrinthine intrigue of
vengeance and spoliation.
And then in a moment my thought swerved, and the memory of Cleghorn
returned to me--Cleghorn, white and abject, grasping the rail of the
dock. Cleghorn fainting where he stood. What terrific emotion had thus
prostrated the man, relieved from an intolerable oppression? Was mere
revulsion of feeling enough to account for it, or was it conceivable
that he too was, after all, concerned in the business, a third party,
and overwhelmed under his sense of unexpected escape from what he had
regarded as his certain doom?
I was getting into deep waters. I stood aghast before my own
imagination. How was I to deal with its creations?
It was an acute problem, my decision on which was reached only after
long deliberation. It was this: I would keep all my suspicions and
theories to myself until I could confide them to the ear of the
Counsel on Hugo’s behalf.
In the meantime some relief from the moral stagnation of Wildshott had
become apparent with the opening of the day succeeding the inquiry.
That deadly lethargy which had followed the first stunning blow was in
part shaken off, and the household, though in hushed vein, began to
resume its ordinary duties. Sir Calvin himself reappeared, white and
drawn, but showing no disposition to suffer commiseration in any form,
or any relaxation from his iron discipline. The events of the next few
days I will pass over at short length. They yielded some pathos,
embraced some preparations, included a visit. I may mention here a
decision of the General’s which a little, in one direction,
embarrassed my designs. Just or unjust to the man, he would not have
Cleghorn back. One could not wonder, perhaps, over his determination;
yet I could have preferred for the moment not to lose sight of my
suspect. We heard later that the butler, as if anticipating his
dismissal, had gone, directly after his release, up to London, where,
no doubt, he could be found if wanted. I had to console myself with
that reflection. The valet, Louis, we came to learn about the same
time, had taken refuge, pending his master’s return--he had got to
hear somehow of the Baron’s absence--with an excellent Roman Catholic
lady, who had pitied his case and offered him employment. _He_ had no
desire, very certainly, to return to a house where he had suffered so
much.
Of a visit I was allowed to pay my friend in the prison I do not wish
to say a great deal. The interview took place in a room with a grating
between us and a warder present. The circumstances were inexpressibly
painful, but I think I felt them more than Hugo. He was cheery and
optimistic--outspoken too in a way that touched me to the quick.
“I want to tell you everything, Viv.,” he said hurriedly, below his
breath; “I want to get it all off my chest. You guessed the truth, of
course; but not the whole of it. There was one thing--I’d like you to
tell my father, if you will--it makes me out a worse cur than I
admitted, but I can’t feel clean till I’ve said it. It began this way.
I surprised the girl over some tricky business--God forgive her and
me; that’s enough said about it!--and I bargained with her for my
silence on terms. I’ll say for myself that I knew already she was fond
of me; but it doesn’t excuse my behaving like a damned cad. Anyhow,
she fell to it easily enough; and then the fat was in the fire. It
blazed up when she discovered--you know. It seemed to turn her mad.
She must be made honest--my wife--or she would kill herself, she said.
I believe in the end I should have married her, if--Viv., old man, I
loved that girl, I loved her God knows with what passion; yet, I tell
you, my first emotion on discovering her dead was one of horrible
relief. Call me an inhuman beast, if you will. I dare say it’s true,
but there it is. I was in such a ghastly hole, and my nerves had gone
all to pieces over it. If I had done what she wished, it meant the end
of everything for her and me. I knew the old man, and that he would
never forgive such an alliance--would ruin and beggar us. I had been
on a hellish rack, and was suddenly off it, and the momentary
sensation was beyond my own control. Does the admission seem to
blacken the case against me? I believe I know you better than to
think so. I’m only accounting in a way for my behaviour on the night
of the--the----. Why, all the time, at the bottom of my soul, I was
crying on my dead darling to come back to me, that I could not live
without her. O, Viv.! why is it made so difficult for some men to go
straight?”
He paused a moment, his head leaned down on his hands, which held on
to the bars. I did not speak. His allusion to the “tricky business” he
had surprised the girl over was haunting my mind. How did it consort
with my latent suspicion of a mystery somewhere?
“Hugh,” I said presently, “you won’t tell me what she was doing when
you first----”
“No, I won’t,” he interrupted me bluntly. “Think what she became to
me, and allow me a little decency. I’ve told you all that’s
necessary--more than I had ever intended to tell you when I promised
you my confidence. I’m sorry for that, Viv. God knows if I had spoken
to you at first it might have altered things. But I couldn’t make up
my mind while a chance existed--or I thought it did. She put me out of
my last conceit that day, swearing she was going to expose the whole
story. It was all true that I said. She may have been waiting there on
the chance of my passing: I swear I didn’t know it. We had our few
words, and I gave my promise and passed on. The evidence about the
shot was a black lie. I can say no more than that.”
I give his words, and leave them at that, making no comment and
drawing no conclusions. If his admission as to his first emotion on
learning of his release might repel some people, I can only plead that
one man’s psychology, like one man’s meat, may be impossible of
digestion by another. I found it, I confess, hard to stomach myself;
but then I had never been a spoilt and wayward only son.
We talked some little time longer on another matter, which had indeed
been the main object of my visit--the nature of, and Counsel for, his
defence. I had undertaken, at Sir Calvin’s instance, to go to London
and interview his lawyers on the subject, thus sparing the father the
bitter trial of a preliminary explanation, and I told Hugo of my
intention.
“What a good fellow you are, Viv.,” he said fondly. “I don’t deserve
that you should take all this trouble about me.”
“If I can only appear to justify my own indecent persistence in
remaining on to help,” I said stiffly, “I shall feel satisfied.”
I could not forbear the little thrust: that wounding remark of his had
never ceased to rankle in me.
“Well, I asked for it,” he said, with a flushed smile. “But don’t
nurse a grudge any longer. I was hardly accountable for what I said in
those days: a man hardly is, you know, when he’s on the rack.”
“O! I forgive you,” I answered. “There’s a virtue sometimes in
pretending to a thick skin----” and we parted on good terms.
My journey to London was arranged for the morrow after the interview.
I had one of my passages with Audrey before going. I don’t know what
particular prejudice it was the girl cherished against me, but she
would never let us be friends. I saw scarcely anything of her in these
days, and when we did meet she would hardly speak to me. I could have
wished even to propitiate her, because it was plain enough to me how
the poor thing was suffering. Her pride and her affections--both of
which, I think, were really deep-seated--were cruelly involved in the
disgrace befallen them. They found some little compensation, perhaps,
in the improved relations established between her father and herself.
Circumstances had brought these two into closer and more sympathetic
kinship; it was as if they had discovered between them a father and a
daughter; and so far poor Hugo’s catastrophe had wrought good. But
still the girl’s loneliness of heart was an evident thing.
Pathetically grateful as she might be for the change in her father’s
attitude towards her, she could never get nearer to that despotic
nature than its own limitations would permit.
“You are pining for your Baron, I suppose,” I said on this day, goaded
at last to speak by her insufferable manner towards me. The taunt was
effective, at least, in opening her mouth.
“You are always hinting unpleasant things about the Baron, Mr.
Bickerdike,” she answered, turning sharply on me. “Don’t you think it
a little mean to be continually slandering him in that underhand way?”
I saw it was still to be battle, and prepared my guard.
“That is your perverse way of looking at it, Audrey,” I answered
quietly. “From my point of view, it is just trying to help my
friends.”
“By maligning them to their enemies?” she answered. “I suppose that
was why you confided to Sergeant Ridgway all you knew about Hugh’s
affairs?”
It gave me a certain shock. I knew that she had read a full report of
the proceedings, but not that she, or any one, had drawn such a cruel
conclusion from it.
“Confided, is the word, Audrey,” I answered, with difficulty levelling
my voice. “I can’t be held responsible for that breach of trust. Yes,
thank you for that smile; but I know what was in my heart, and it was
to help Hugh over a difficult place I foresaw for him. My weakness was
in thinking other men as honourable as myself. But, anyhow, your stab
is rather misplaced, since I wasn’t ‘maligning,’ as you say, my friends
to their enemies, but the other way about, as _I_ see it.”
“Well, don’t see it,” she said insolently. “Perhaps--just consider it
as possible--I may happen to know more about the Baron than you do.”
“O! I dare say he’s been yarning to you,” I answered, “and quite
plausibly enough to a credulous listener. But, if I were you, I
wouldn’t attach too much importance to what he tells you about
himself. I’ll say no more as to my own suspicions, though events have
not modified them, I can assure you; but I _will_ say that regard for
your brother should at least incline you to go warily in a matter
which may have a very strong bearing on his interests.”
She stood conning me a moment or two in silence.
“Please to be explicit,” she said then. “Do you mean that you believe
the Baron to be the real criminal?”
I positively jumped.
“Good Heavens!” I cried. “Don’t make me responsible for such wild
statements. I mean only that, in the face of your brother’s awful
situation, you should be scrupulously careful to do nothing which
might seem to impair the efforts of those who are working to throw new
light on it. I don’t say the Baron is the guilty one, but it is
possible your brother is not.”
“Is that all?” she cried. She stepped right up to me, so that our
faces were near touching. “Mr. Vivian Bickerdike,” she said, “Hugh
did not commit that murder. I tell you, in case you do not know.”
“I never said he did,” I answered, involuntarily backing a little, her
eyes were so pugnacious. “How you persist in misreading me! I only
want to be prepared against all contingencies.”
“Amongst which, I suppose, is the Baron’s wicked attempt to exculpate
himself to me, by encouraging my suspicions against Hughie?” She
laughed, with a sort of defiant sob in her voice. “I’ll tell you what
I truly think: that he is a better friend to my brother than you are;
and I hope he’ll come back soon; and, when he does, I shall go on
listening to and believing in him, as I do think I believe in no one
else. And in the meantime I’ll tell you this for your comfort: he is
really English, and really the Baron Le Sage. He takes his title from
an estate in the Cevennes, which was left him by a maternal uncle; and
he is very rich, and I dare say very eccentric in wanting to do good
with his money; and that is enough for the present.”
“And he plays chess for half-crowns and steals private papers!” I
cried to myself scornfully, as she turned and left me.
Poor foolish creature. It was no good my trying to convince her, and I
gave up the attempt then and there.