CLEMENT AUSTIN'S JOURNAL CONTINUED.
"The rest of the evening passed quietly enough. Mr. Carter drank his
strong tea, and then asked my permission to go out and smoke a couple
of cigars in the High Street. He went, and I finished my letter to my
mother. There was a full moon, but it was obscured every now and then
by the black clouds that drifted across it. I went out myself to post
the letter, and I was glad to feel the cool breeze blowing the hair
away from my forehead, for the excitement of the day had given me a
nervous headache.
"I posted my letter in a narrow street near the hotel. As I turned away
from the post-office to go back to the High Street, I was startled by
the apparition of a girlish figure upon the other side of the street—a
figure so like Margaret's that its presence in that street filled me
with a vague sense of fear, as if the slender figure, with garments
fluttering in the wind, had been a phantom.
"Of course I attributed this feeling to its right cause, which was
doubtless neither more nor less than the over-excited state of my own
brain. But I was determined to set the matter quite at rest, so I
hurried across the way and went close up to the young lady, whose face
was completely hidden by a thick veil.
"'Miss Wilmot—Margaret,' I said.
"I had thought it impossible that Margaret should be in Winchester, and
I was only right, it seemed, for the young lady drew herself away from
me abruptly and walked across the road, as if she mistook my error in
addressing her for an intentional insult. I watched her as she walked
rapidly along the narrow street, until she turned sharply away at a
corner and disappeared. When I first saw her, as I stood by the
post-office, the moonlight had shone full upon her. As she went away
the moon was hidden by a fleecy grey cloud, and the street was wrapped
in shadow. Thus it was only for a few moments that I distinctly saw the
outline of her figure. Her face I did not see at all.
"I went back to the hotel and sat by the fire trying to read a
newspaper, but unable to chain my thoughts to the page. Mr. Carter came
in a little before eleven o'clock. He was in very high spirits, and
drank a tumbler of steaming brandy-and-water with great gusto. But
question him how I might, I could get nothing from him except that he
meant to have a search made for the dead man's clothes.
"I asked him why he wanted them, and what advantage would be gained by
the finding of them, but he only nodded his head significantly, and
told me to wait.
* * * * * * * * *
"To-day has been most wretched—a day of miserable discoveries; and yet
not altogether miserable, for the one grand discovery of the day has
justified my faith in the woman I love.
"The morning was cold and wet. There was not a ray of sunshine in the
dense grey sky, and the flat landscape beyond the cathedral seemed
almost blotted out by the drizzling rain; only the hills, grand and
changeless, towered above the mists, and made the landmarks of the
soddened country.
"We took an early and hasty breakfast. Quiet and business-like as the
detective's manner was even to-day, I could see that he was excited. He
took nothing but a cup of strong tea and a few mouthfuls of dry toast,
and then put on his coat and hat.
"'I'm going down to the chief quarters of the county constabulary, he
said. 'I shall be obliged to tell the truth about my business down
there, because I want every facility for what I'm going to do. If you'd
like to see the water dragged, you can meet me at twelve o'clock in the
grove. You'll find me superintending the work.'
"It was about half-past eight when Mr. Carter left me. The time hung
very heavily on my hands between that time and eleven o'clock. At
eleven I put on my hat and overcoat and went out into the rain.
"I found my friend the detective standing in one of the smaller
entrances of the cathedral, in very earnest conversation with an old
man. As Mr. Carter gave me no token of recognition, I understood that
he did not want me to interrupt his companion's talk, so I walked
slowly on by the same pathway along which we had gone on the previous
afternoon; the same pathway by which the murdered man had gone to his
death.
"I had not walked half a mile before I was joined by the detective.
"'I gave you the office just now,' he said, 'because I thought if you
spoke to me, that old chap would leave off talking, and I might miss
something that was on the tip of his tongue.'
"'Did he tell you much?'
"'No; he's the man who gave his evidence at the inquest. He gave me a
minute description of Henry Dunbar's watch and chain. The watch didn't
open quite in the usual manner, and the gentleman was rather awkward in
opening it, my friend the verger tells me. He was awkward with the key
of his desk. He seems to have had a fit of awkwardness that day.'
"'You think that he was guilty, and that he was confused and agitated
by the hideous business he had been concerned in?'
"Mr. Carter looked at me with a very queer smile on his face.
"'You're improving, Mr. Austin,' he said; 'you'd make a first-class
detective in next to no time.'
"I felt rather doubtful as to the meaning of this compliment, for there
was something very like irony in Mr. Carter's tone.
"'I'll tell you what I think,' he said, stopping presently, and taking
me by the button-hole. 'I think that I know why the murdered man's
coat, waistcoat, and shirt were stripped off him.'
"I begged the detective to tell me what he thought upon this subject;
but he refused to do so.
"'Wait and see,' he said; 'if I'm right, you'll soon find out what I
mean; if I'm wrong, I'll keep my thoughts to myself. I'm an old hand,
and I don't want to be found out in a mistake.'
"I said no more after this. The disappearance of the murdered man's
clothes had always appeared to me the only circumstance that was
irreconcilable with the idea of Henry Dunbar's guilt. That some brutal
wretch, who stained his soul with blood for the sake of his victim's
poor possessions, should strip off the clothes of the dead, and make a
market even out of them, was probable enough. But that Henry Dunbar,
the wealthy, hyper-refined Anglo-Indian, should linger over the body of
his valet and offer needless profanation to the dead, was something
incredible, and not to be accounted for by any theory whatever.
"This was the one point which, from first to last, had completely
baffled me.
"We found the man with the drags waiting for us under the dripping
trees. Mr. Carter had revealed himself to the constabulary as one of
the chief luminaries of Scotland Yard; and if he had wanted to dig up
the foundations of the cathedral, they would scarcely have ventured to
interfere with his design. One of the constables was lounging by the
water's edge, watching the men as they prepared for business.
"I have no need to write a minute record of that miserable day. I know
that I walked up and down, up and down, backwards and forwards, upon
the soddened grass, from noon till sundown, always thinking that I
would go away presently, always lingering a little longer; hindered by
the fancy that Mr. Carter's search was on the point of being
successful. I know that for hour after hour the grating sound of the
iron drags grinding on the gravelly bed of the stream sounded in my
tired ears, and yet there was no result. I know that rusty scraps of
worn-out hardware, dead bodies of cats and dogs, old shoes laden with
pebbles, rank entanglements of vegetable corruption, and all manner of
likely and unlikely rubbish, were dragged out of the stream, and thrown
aside upon the bank.
"The detective grew dirtier and slimier and wetter as the day wore on;
but still he did not lose heart.
"'I'll have every inch of the bed of the stream, and every hidden hole
in the bottom, dragged ten times over, before I'll give it up,' he said
to me, when he came to me at dusk with some brandy that had been
brought by a boy who had been fetching beer, more or less, all the
afternoon.
"When it grew dark, the men lighted a couple of flaring resinous
torches, which Mr. Carter had sent for towards dusk, and worked, by the
patches of fitful light which these torches threw upon the water. I
still walked up and down under the dripping trees, in the darkness, as
I had walked in the light; and once when I was farthest from the red
glare of the torches, a strange fancy took possession of me. In amongst
the dim branches of the trees I thought I saw something moving,
something that reminded me of the figure I had seen opposite the
post-office on the previous night.
"I ran in amongst the trees; and as I did so, the figure seemed to me
to recede, and disappear; a faint rustling of a woman's dress sounded
in my ears, or seemed so to sound, as the figure melted from my sight.
But again I had good reason to attribute these fancies to the state of
my own brain, after that long day of anxiety and suspense.
"At last, when I was completely worn out by my weary day, Mr. Carter
came to me.
"'They're found!' he cried. 'We've found 'em! We've found the murdered
man's clothes! They've been drifted away into one of the deepest holes
there is, and the rats have been gnawing at 'em. But, please
Providence, we shall find what we want. I'm not much of a church-goer,
but I do believe there's a Providence that lies in wait for wicked men,
and catches the very cleverest of them when they least expect it.'
"I had never seen Mr. Carter so much excited as he seemed now. His face
was flushed, and his nostrils quivered nervously.
"I followed him to the spot where the constable and two men, who had
been dragging the stream, were gathered round a bundle of wet rubbish
lying on the ground.
"Mr. Carter knelt down before this bundle, which was covered with
trailing weeds and moss and slime, and the constable stooped over him
with a flaming torch in his hand.
"'These are somebody's clothes, sure enough,' the detective said; 'and,
unless I'm very much mistaken, they're what I want. Has anybody got a
basket?'
"Yes. The boy who had fetched beer had a basket. Mr. Carter stuffed the
slimy bundle into this basket, and put his arm through the handle.
"'You're not going to look 'em over here, then?' said the local
constable, with an air of disappointment.
"'No, I'll take them straight to my hotel; I shall have plenty of light
there. You can come with me, if you like,' Mr. Carter answered.
"He paid the men, who had been at work all day, and paid them
liberally, I suppose, for they seemed very well satisfied. I had given
him money for any expenses such as these; for I knew that, in a case of
this kind, every insignificant step entailed the expenditure of money.
"We walked homewards as rapidly as the miserable state of the path, the
increasing darkness, and the falling rain would allow us to walk. The
constable walked with us. Mr. Carter whistled softly to himself as he
went along, with the basket on his arm. The slimy green stuff and muddy
water dripped from the bottom of the basket as he carried it.
"I was still at a loss to understand the reason of his high spirits; I
was still at a loss to comprehend why he attached so much importance to
the finding of the dead man's clothes.
"It was past eight o'clock when we three men—the detective, the
Winchester constable, and myself—entered our sitting-room at the George
Hotel. The principal table was laid for dinner; and the waiter, our
friend of the previous evening, was hovering about, eager to receive
us. But Mr. Carter sent the waiter about his business.
"'I've got a little matter to settle with this gentleman,' he said,
indicating the Winchester constable with a backward jerk of his thumb;
'I'll ring when I want dinner.'
"I saw the waiter's eyes open to an abnormal extent, as he looked at
the constable, and I saw a sudden blank apprehension creep over his
face, as he retired very slowly from the room.
"'Now,' said Mr. Carter, 'we'll examine the bundle.'
"He pushed away the dinner-table, and drew forward a smaller table.
Then he ran out of the room, and returned in about two minutes,
carrying with him all the towels he had been able to find in my room
and his own, which were close at hand. He spread the towels on the
table, and then took the slimy bundle from the basket.
"'Bring me the candles—both the candles,' he said to the constable.
"The man held the two wax-candles on the right hand of the detective,
as he sat before the table. I stood on his left hand, watching him
intently.
"He touched the ragged and mud-stained bundle as carefully as if it had
been some living thing. Foul river-insects crept out of the weeds,
which were so intermingled with the tattered fabrics that it was
difficult to distinguish one substance from the other.
"Mr. Carter was right: the rats had been at work. The outer part of the
bundle was a coat—a cloth coat, knawed into tatters by the sharp teeth
of water-rats.
"Inside the coat there was a waistcoat, a satin scarf that was little
better than a pulp, and a shirt that had once been white. Inside the
white shirt there was a flannel shirt, out of which there rolled
half-a-dozen heavy stones. These had been used to sink the bundle, but
were not so heavy as to prevent its drifting into the hole where it had
been found.
"The bundle had been rolled up very tightly, and the outer garment was
the only one which had been destroyed by the rats. The inner
garment—the flannel shirt—was in a very tolerable state of
preservation.
"The detective swept the coat and waistcoat and the pebbles back into
the basket, and then rolled both of the shirts in a towel, and did his
best to dry them. The constable watched him with open eyes, but with no
ray of intelligence in his stolid face.
"'Well,' said Mr. Carter,' there isn't much here, is there? I don't
think I need detain you any longer. You'll be wanting your tea, I dare
say.'
"'I didn't think there would be much in them,' the constable said,
pointing contemptuously to the wet rags; his reverential awe of
Scotland Yard had been considerably lessened during that long tiresome
day. 'I didn't see your game from the first, and I don't see it now.
But you wanted the things found, and you've had 'em found.'
"Yes; and I've paid for the work being done,' Mr. Carter answered
briskly; 'not but what I'm thankful to you for giving me your help, and
I shall esteem it a favour if you'll accept a trifle, to make up for
your lost day. I've made a mistake, that's all; the wisest of us are
liable to be mistaken once in a way.'
"The constable grinned as he took the sovereign which Mr. Carter
offered him. There was something like triumph in the grin of that
Winchester constable—the triumph of a country official who was pleased
to see a Londoner at fault.
"I confess that I groaned aloud when the door closed upon the man, and
I found myself alone with the detective, who had seated himself at the
little table, and was poring over one of the shirts outspread before
him.
"'All this day's labour and weariness has been so much wasted trouble,'
I said; 'for it seems to have brought us no step nearer to the point we
wanted to reach."
"'Hasn't it, Mr. Austin?" cried the detective, eagerly. 'Do you think I
am such a fool as to speak out before the man who has just left this
room? Do you think I'm going to tell him my secret, or let him share my
gains? The business of to-day has brought us to the very end we want to
reach. It has brought about the discovery to which Margaret Wilmot's
letter was the first indication—the discovery pointed to by every word
that man told us last night. Why did I want to find the clothes worn by
the murdered man? Because I knew that those garments must contain a
secret, or they never would have been stripped from the corpse. It
ain't often that a murderer cares to stop longer than he's obliged by
the side of his victim; and I knew all along that whoever stripped off
those clothes must have had a very strong reason for doing it. I have
worked this business out by my own lights, and I've been right. Look
there, Mr. Austin.'
"He handed me the wet discoloured shirt, and pointed with his finger to
one particular spot.
"There, amidst the stains of mud and moss, I saw something which was
distinct and different from them. A name, neatly worked in dark crimson
thread—a Christian and surname, in full.
"'How do you make that out?' Mr. Carter asked, looking me full in the
face.
"Neither I nor any rational creature upon this earth able to read
English characters could have well made out that name otherwise than I
made it out.
"It was the name of Henry Dunbar.
"'You see it all now, don't you?' said Mr. Carter; 'that's why the
clothes were stripped off the body, and hidden at the bottom of the
stream, where the water seemed deepest; that's why the watch and chain
changed hands; that's why the man who came back to this house after the
murder was slow to select the key of the desk. You understand now why
it was so difficult for Margaret Wilmot to obtain access to the man at
Maudesley Abbey; and why, when she had once seen that man, she tried to
shield him from inquiry and pursuit. When she told you that Henry
Dunbar was innocent of her father's murder, she only told you the
truth. The man who was murdered was Henry Dunbar; the man who murdered
him was——'
"I could hear no more. The blood surged up to my head, and I staggered
back and dropped into a chair.
"When I came to myself, I found the detective splashing cold water in
my face. When I came to myself, and was able to think steadily of what
had happened, I had but one feeling in my mind; and that was pity,
unutterable pity, for the woman I loved.
* * * * * * * * *
"Mr. Carter carried the bundle of clothes to his own room, and returned
by-and-by, bringing his portmanteau with him. He put the portmanteau in
a corner near the fireplace.
"'I've locked the clothes safely in that,' he said; 'and I don't mean
to let it out of my sight till it's lodged in very safe hands. That
mark upon Henry Dunbar's shirt will hang his murderer.'
"'There may have been some mistake,' I said; 'the clothes marked with
the name of Henry Dunbar may not have really belonged to Henry Dunbar.
He may have given those clothes to his old valet.'
"'That's not likely, sir; for the old valet only met him at Southampton
two or three hours before the murder was committed. No; I can see it
all now. It's the strangest case that ever came to my knowledge, but
it's simple enough when you've got the right clue to it. There was no
probable motive which could induce Henry Dunbar, the very pink of
respectability, and sole owner of a million of money, to run the risk
of the gallows; there were very strong reasons why Joseph Wilmot, a
vagabond and a returned criminal, should murder his late master, if by
so doing he could take the dead man's place, and slip from the position
of an outcast and a penniless reprobate into that of chief partner in
the house of Dunbar and Company. It was a bold game to hazard, and it
must have been a fearfully perilous and difficult game to play, and the
man has played it well, to have escaped suspicion so long. His
daughter's conscientious scruples have betrayed him.'
"Yes, Mr. Carter spoke the truth. Margaret's refusal to fulfil her
engagement had set in motion the machinery by means of which the secret
of this foul murder had been discovered.
"I thought of the strange revelation, still so new to me, until my
brain grew dazed. How had it been done? How had it been managed? The
man whom I had seen and spoken with was not Henry Dunbar, then, but
Joseph Wilmot, the murderer of his master—the treacherous and
deliberate assassin of the man he had gone to meet and welcome after
his five-and-thirty years' absence from England!
"'But surely such a conspiracy must be impossible,' I said, by-and-by;
'I have seen letters in St. Gundolph Lane, letters in Henry Dunbar's
hand, since last August.'
"'That's very likely, sir,' the detective answered, coolly. 'I turned
up Joseph Wilmot's own history while I was making myself acquainted
with the details of this murder. He was transported thirty years ago
for forgery: he made a bold attempt at escape, but he was caught in the
act, and removed to Norfolk Island. He was one of the cleverest chaps
at counterfeiting any man's handwriting that was ever tried at the Old
Bailey. He was known as one of the most daring scoundrels that ever
stepped on board a convict-ship; a clever villain, and a bold one, but
not without some touches of good in him, I'm told. At Norfolk Island he
worked so hard and behaved so well that he got set free before he had
served half his time. He came back to England, and was seen about
London, and was suspected of being concerned in all manner of criminal
offences, from card-sharping to coining, but nothing was ever brought
home to him. I believe he tried to make an honest living, but couldn't:
the brand of the gaol-bird was upon him; and if he ever did get a
chance, it was taken away from him before the sincerity of any apparent
reformation had been tested. This is his history, and the history of
many other men like him.'
"And Margaret was the daughter of this man. An inexpressible feeling of
melancholy took possession of me as I thought of this. I understood
everything now. This noble girl had heroically put away from her the
one chance of bright and happy life, rather than bring upon her husband
the foul taint of her father's crime. I could understand all now. I
looked back at the white face, rigid in its speechless agony; the
fixed, dilated eyes; and I pictured to myself the horror of that scene
at Maudesley Abbey, when the father and daughter stood opposite to each
other, and Margaret Wilmot discovered _why_ the murderer had
persistently hidden himself from her.
"The mystery of my betrothed wife's renunciation of my love had been
solved; but the discovery was so hideous that I looked back now and
regretted the time of my ignorance and uncertainty. Would it not have
been better for me if I had let Margaret Wilmot go her own way, and
carry out her sublime scheme of self-sacrifice? Would it not have been
better to leave the dark secret of the murder for ever hidden from all
but that one dread Avenger whose judgments reach the sinner in his
remotest hiding-place, and follow him to the grave? Would it not have
been better to do this?
"No! my own heart told me the argument was false and cowardly. So long
as man deals with his fellow-man, so long as laws endure for the
protection of the helpless and the punishment of the wicked, the course
of justice must know no hindrance from any personal consideration.
"If Margaret Wilmot's father had done this hateful deed, he must pay
the penalty of his crime, though the broken heart of his innocent
daughter was a sacrifice to his iniquity. If, by a strange fatality, I,
who so dearly loved this girl, had urged on the coming of this fatal
day, I had only been a blind instrument in the mighty hand of
Providence, and I had no cause to regret the revelation of the truth.
"There was only one thing left me. The world would shrink away,
perhaps, from the murderer's daughter; but I, who had seen her nature
proved in the fiery furnace of affliction, knew what a priceless pearl
Heaven had given me in this woman, whose name must henceforward sound
vile in the ears of honest men, and I did not recoil from the horror of
my poor girl's history.
"'If it has been my destiny to bring this great sorrow upon her,' I
thought, 'it shall be my duty to make her future safe and happy.'
"But would Margaret ever consent to be my wife, if she discovered that
I had been the means of bringing about the discovery of her father's
crime?
"This was not a pleasant thought, and it was uppermost in my mind while
I sat opposite to the detective, who ate a very hearty dinner, and
whose air of suppressed high spirits was intolerable to me.
"Success is the very wine of life, and it was scarcely strange that Mr.
Carter should feel pleased at having succeeded in finding a clue to the
mystery that had so completely baffled his colleagues. So long as I had
believed in Henry Dunbar's guilt, I had felt no compunction as to the
task I was engaged in. I had even caught something of the detective's
excitement in the chase. But now, now that I knew the shame and anguish
which our discovery must inevitably entail upon the woman I loved, my
heart sank within me, and I hated Mr. Carter for his ardent enjoyment
of his triumph.
"'You don't mind travelling by the mail-train, do you, Mr. Austin?' the
detective said, presently.
"'Not particularly; but why do you ask me?'
"'Because I shall leave Winchester by the mail to-night.'
"'What for?'
"'To get as fast as I can to Maudesley Abbey, where I shall have the
honour of arresting Mr. Joseph Wilmot.'
"So soon! I shuddered at the rapid course of justice when once a
criminal mystery is revealed.
"'But what if you should be mistaken! What if Joseph Wilmot was the
victim and not the murderer?"
"'In that case I shall soon discover my mistake. If the man at
Maudesley Abbey is Henry Dunbar, there must be plenty of people able to
identify him.'
"'But Henry Dunbar has been away five-and-thirty years.'
"'He has; but people don't think much of the distance between England
and Calcutta nowadays. There must be people in England now who knew the
banker in India. I'm going down to the resident magistrate, Mr. Austin;
the man who had Henry Dunbar, or the supposed Henry Dunbar, arrested
last August. I shall leave the clothes in his care, for Joseph Wilmot
will be tried at the Winchester assizes. The mail leaves Winchester at
a quarter before eleven,' added Mr. Carter, looking at his watch as he
spoke; 'so I haven't much time to lose.'
"He took the bundle from the portmanteau, wrapped it in a sheet of
brown paper which the waiter had brought him a few minutes before, and
hurried away. I sat alone brooding over the fire, and trying to reason
upon the events of the day.
"The waiter was moving softly about the room; but though I saw him look
at me wistfully once or twice, he did not speak to me until he was
about to leave the room, when he told me that there was a letter on the
mantelpiece; a letter which had come by the evening post.
"The letter had been staring me in the face all the evening, but in my
abstraction I had never noticed it.
"It was from my mother. I opened it when the waiter had left me, and
read the following lines:
"'MY DEAREST CLEM,—_I was very glad to get your letter this morning,
announcing your safe arrival at Winchester. I dare say I am a foolish
old woman, but I always begin to think of railway collisions, and all
manner of possible and impossible calamities, directly you leave me on
ever so short a journey.
"'I was very much surprised yesterday morning by a visit from Margaret
Wilmot. I was very cool to her at first; for though you never told me
why your engagement to her was so abruptly broken off, I could not but
think she was in some manner to blame, since I knew you too well, my
darling boy, to believe you capable of inconstancy or unkindness. I
thought, therefore, that her visit was very ill-timed, and I let her
see that my feelings towards her were entirely changed.
"'But, oh, Clement, when I saw the alteration in that unhappy girl, my
heart melted all at once, and I could not speak to her coldly or
unkindly. I never saw such a change in any one before. She is altered
from a pretty girl into a pale haggard woman. Her manners are as much
changed as her personal appearance. She had a feverish restlessness
that fidgeted me out of my life; and her limbs trembled every now and
then while she was speaking, and her words seemed to die away as she
tried to utter them. She wanted to see you, she said; and when I told
her that you were out of town, she seemed terribly distressed. But
afterwards, when she had questioned me a good deal, and I told her that
you had gone to Winchester, she started suddenly to her feet, and began
to tremble from head to foot.
"'I rang for wine, and made her take some. She did not refuse to take
it; on the contrary, she drank the wine quite eagerly, and said, 'I
hope it will give me strength. I am so feeble, so miserably weak and
feeble, and I want to be strong.' I persuaded her to stop and rest; but
she wouldn't listen to me. She wanted to go back to London, she said;
she wanted to be in London by a particular time. Do what I would, I
could not detain her. She took my hands, and pressed them to her poor
pale lips, and then hurried away, so changed from the bright Margaret
of the past, that a dreadful thought took possession of my mind, and I
began to fear that she was mad.'_
"The letter went on to speak of other things; but I could not think of
anything but my mother's description of Margaret's visit. I understood
her agitation at hearing of my journey to Winchester. She knew that
only one motive could lead me to that place. I knew now that the
familiar figure I had seen in the moonlit street and in the dusky grove
was no phantasm of my over-excited brain. I knew now that it was the
figure of the noble-hearted woman I loved—the figure of the heroic
daughter, who had followed me to Winchester, and dogged my footsteps,
in the vain effort to stand between her father and the penalty of his
crime.
"As I had been watched in the street on the previous night, I had been
watched to-night in the grove. The rustling dress, the shadowy figure
melting in the obscurity of the rain-blotted landscape had belonged to
Margaret Wilmot!
"Mr. Carter came in while I was still pondering over my mother's
letter.
"'I'm off,' he said, briskly. 'Will you settle the bill, Mr. Austin? I
suppose you'd like to be with me to the end of this business. You'll go
down to Maudesley Abbey with me, won't you?'
"'No,' I said; 'I will have no farther hand in this matter. Do your
duty, Mr. Carter; and the reward I promised shall be faithfully paid to
you. If Joseph Wilmot was the treacherous murderer of his old master,
he must pay the penalty of his crime; I have neither the power nor the
wish to shield him. But he is the father of the woman I love. It is not
for me to help in hunting him to the gallows.'
"Mr. Carter looked very grave.
"'To be sure, sir,' he said; 'I recollect now. I've been so wrapt up in
this business that I forgot the difference it would make to you; but
many a good girl has had a bad father, you know, sir, and——'
"I put up my hand to stop him.
"'Nothing that can possibly happen will lessen my esteem for Miss
Wilmot,' I said. 'That point admits of no discussion.'
"I took out my pocket-book, gave the detective money for his expenses,
and wished him good night.
"When he had left me, I went out into the High Street. The rain was
over, and the moon was shining in a cloudless sky. Heaven knows how I
should have met Margaret Wilmot had chance thrown her in my way
to-night. But my mind was filled with her image; and I walked about the
quiet town, expecting at every turn in the street, at every approaching
footstep sounding on the pavement, to see the figure I had seen last
night. But go where I would I saw no sign of her; so I came back to the
hotel at last, to sit alone by the dull fire, and write this record of
my day's work."
* * * * * * * * *
While Clement Austin sat in the lonely sitting-room at the George Inn,
with his rapid pen scratching along the paper before him, a woman
walked up and down the lamp-lit platform at Rugby, waiting for the
branch train which was to take her on to Shorncliffe.
This woman was Margaret Wilmot—the haggard, trembling girl whose
altered manner had so terrified simple-hearted Mrs. Austin.
But she did not tremble now. She had pushed her thick black veil away
from her face, and though no vestige of healthy colour had come back to
her cheeks or lips, her features had a set look of steadfast
resolution, and her eyes looked straight before her, like the eyes of a
person who has one special purpose in view, and will not swerve or
falter until that purpose has been carried out.
There was only one elderly gentleman in the first-class carriage in
which Margaret Wilmot took her seat when the branch train for
Shorncliffe was ready; and as this one fellow-passenger slept
throughout the journey, with his face covered by an expansive silk
handkerchief, Margaret was left free to think her own thoughts.
The girl was scarcely less quiet than her slumbering companion; she sat
in one changeless attitude, with her hands clasped together in her lap,
and her eyes always looking straight forward, as they had looked when
she walked upon the platform. Once she put her hand mechanically to the
belt of her dress, and then shook her head with a sigh as she drew it
away.
"How long the time seems!" she said; "how long! and I have no watch
now, and I can't tell how late it is. If they should be there before
me. If they should be travelling by this train. No, that's impossible.
I know that neither Clement, nor the man that was with him, left
Winchester by the train that took me to London. But if they should
telegraph to London or Shorncliffe?"
She began to tremble at the thought of this possibility. If that grand
wonder of science, the electric telegraph, should be made use of by the
men she dreaded, she would be too late upon the errand she was going
on.
The mail train stopped at Shorncliffe while she was thinking of this
fatal possibility. She got out and asked one of the porters to get her
a fly; but the man shook his head.
"There's no flies to be had at this time of night, miss," he said,
civilly enough. "Where do you want to go?"
She dared not tell him her destination; secrecy was essential to the
fulfilment of her purpose.
"I can walk," she said; "I am not going very far." She left the station
before the man could ask her any further questions, and went out into
the moonlit country road on which the station abutted. She went through
the town of Shorncliffe, where the diamond casements were all darkened
for the night, and under the gloomy archway, past the dark shadows
which the ponderous castle-towers flung across the rippling water. She
left the town, and went out upon the lonely country road, through
patches of moonlight and shadow, fearless in her self-abnegation, with
only one thought in her mind: "Would she be in time?"
She was very tired when she came at last to the iron gates at the
principal entrance of Maudesley Park. She had heard Clement Austin
speak of a bridle-path through the park to Lisford, and he had told her
that this bridle-path was approached by a gate in the park-fence
upwards of a mile from the principal lodge.
She walked along by this fence, looking for the gate.
She found it at last; a little low wooden gate, painted white, and only
fastened by a latch. Beyond the gate there was a pathway winding in and
out among the trunks of the great elms, across the dry grass.
Margaret Wilmot followed this winding path, slowly and doubtfully, till
she came to the margin of a vast open lawn. Upon the other side of this
lawn she saw the dark frontage of Maudesley Abbey, and three tall
lighted windows gleaming through the night.