UNDER A CLOUD.
Talbot Bulstrode and his wife came to Mellish Park a few days after
the return of John and Aurora. Lucy was pleased to come to her cousin;
pleased to be allowed to love her without reservation; grateful to her
husband for his gracious goodness in setting no barrier between her and
the friend she loved.
And Talbot,--who shall tell the thoughts that were busy in his mind,
as he sat in a corner of the first-class carriage, to all outward
appearance engrossed in the perusal of a 'Times' leader?
I wonder how much of the Thunderer's noble Saxon English Mr. Bulstrode
comprehended that morning! The broad white paper on which the 'Times'
is printed serves as a convenient screen for a man's face. Heaven knows
what agonies have been sometimes endured behind that printed mask! A
woman, married, and a happy mother, glances carelessly enough at the
Births and Marriages and Deaths, and reads perhaps that the man she
loved, and parted with, and broke her heart for, fifteen or twenty
years before, has fallen, shot through the heart, far away upon an
Indian battle-field. She holds the paper firmly enough before her face;
and her husband goes on with his breakfast, and stirs his coffee, or
breaks his egg, while she suffers her agony,--while the comfortable
breakfast-table darkens and goes away from her, and the long-ago day
comes back upon which the cruel ship left Southampton, and the hard
voices of well-meaning friends held forth monotonously upon the folly
of improvident marriages. Would it not be better, by-the-by, for wives
to make a practice of telling their husbands all the sentimental little
stories connected with the pre-matrimonial era? Would it not be wiser
to gossip freely about Charles's dark eyes and moustache, and to hope
that the poor fellow is getting on well in the Indian service, than to
keep a skeleton, in the shape of a phantom ensign in the 87th, hidden
away in some dark chamber of the feminine memory?
But other than womanly agonies are suffered behind the 'Times.' The
husband reads bad news of the railway company in whose shares he has
so rashly invested that money which his wife believes safely lodged in
the jog-trot, three-per-cent.-yielding Consols. The dashing son, with
Newmarket tendencies, reads evil tidings of the horse he has backed so
boldly, perhaps at the advice of a Manchester prophet, who warranted
putting his friends in the way of winning a hatful of money for the
small consideration of three-and-sixpence in postage-stamps. Visions
of a book that it will not be very easy to square; of a black list of
play or pay engagements; of a crowd of angry book-men clamorous for
their dues, and not slow to hint at handy horse-ponds, and possible tar
and feathers, for defaulting swells and sneaking "welshers"; all these
things flit across the disorganized brain of the young man, while his
sisters are entreating to be told whether the 'Crown Diamonds' is to be
performed that night, and if "dear Miss Pyne" will warble Rode's air
before the curtain falls. The friendly screen hides his face; and by
the time he has looked for the Covent Garden advertisements, and given
the required information, he is able to set the paper down and proceed
calmly with his breakfast, pondering ways and means as he does so.
Lucy Bulstrode read a High-Church novel, while her husband sat with
the 'Times' before his face, thinking of all that had happened to him
since he had first met the banker's daughter. How far away that old
love-story seemed to have receded since the quiet domestic happiness of
his life had begun in his marriage with Lucy! He had never been false,
in the remotest shadow of a thought, to his second love; but now that
he knew the secret of Aurora's life, he could but look back and wonder
how he should have borne that cruel revelation if John's fate had been
his; if he had trusted the woman he loved in spite of the world, in
spite of her own strange words, which had so terribly strengthened his
worst fears, so cruelly redoubled his darkest doubts.
"Poor girl!" he thought; "it was scarcely strange that she should
shrink from telling that humiliating story. I was not tender enough.
I confronted her in my obstinate and pitiless pride. I thought of
myself rather than of her, and of her sorrow. I was barbarous and
ungentlemanly; and then I wondered that she refused to confide in me."
Talbot Bulstrode, reasoning after the fact, saw the weak points of his
conduct with a preternatural clearness of vision, and could not repress
a sharp pang of regret that he had not acted more generously. There
was no infidelity to Lucy in this thought. He would not have exchanged
his devoted little wife for the black-browed divinity of the past,
though an all-powerful fairy had stood at his side ready to cancel
his nuptials and tie a fresh knot between him and Aurora. But he was
a gentleman, and he felt that he had grievously wronged, insulted and
humiliated a woman whose worst fault had been the trusting folly of an
innocent girl.
"I left her on the ground in that room at Felden," he
thought,--"kneeling on the ground, with her beautiful head bowed down
before me. O my God, can I ever forget the agony of that moment! Can I
ever forget what it cost me to do that which I thought was right!"
The cold perspiration broke out upon his forehead as he remembered
that bygone pain, as it may do with a cowardly person who recalls too
vividly the taking out of a three-pronged double-tooth, or the cutting
off of a limb.
"John Mellish was ten times wiser than I," thought Mr. Bulstrode; "he
trusted to his instinct, and recognized a true woman when he met her.
I used to despise him at Rugby because he couldn't construe Cicero. I
never thought he'd live to be wiser than me."
Talbot Bulstrode folded the 'Times' newspaper, and laid it down in the
empty seat by his side. Lucy shut the third volume of her novel. How
should she care to read when it pleased her husband to desist from
reading?
"Lucy," said Mr. Bulstrode, taking his wife's hand (they had the
carriage to themselves--a piece of good fortune which often happens to
travellers who give the guard half-a-crown),--"Lucy, I once did your
cousin a great wrong; I want to atone for it now. If any trouble, which
no one yet foresees, should come upon her, I want to be her friend. Do
you think I am right in wishing this, dear?"
"Right, Talbot!"
Mrs. Bulstrode could only repeat the word in unmitigated surprise. When
did she ever think him anything but the truest and wisest and most
perfect of created beings?
Everything seemed very quiet at Mellish when the visitors arrived.
There was no one in the drawing-room, nor in the smaller room within
the drawing-room; the Venetians were closed, for the day was close
and sultry; there were vases of fresh flowers upon the tables; but
there were no open books, no litter of frivolous needlework or
drawing-materials, to indicate Aurora's presence.
"Mr. and Mrs. Mellish expected you by the later train, I believe,
sir," the servant said, as he ushered Talbot and his wife into the
drawing-room.
"Shall I go and look for Aurora?" Lucy said to her husband. "She is in
the morning-room, I dare say."
Talbot suggested that it would be better, perhaps, to wait till Mrs.
Mellish came to them. So Lucy was fain to remain where she was. She
went to one of the open windows, and pushed the shutters apart. The
blazing sunshine burst into the room, and drowned it in light. The
smooth lawn was aflame with scarlet geraniums and standard roses, and
all manner of gaudily-coloured blossoms; but Mrs. Bulstrode looked
beyond this vividly-tinted _parterre_ to the thick woods, that loomed
darkly purple against the glowing sky.
It was in that very wood that her husband had declared his love for
her; the same wood that had since been outraged by violence and murder.
"The--the man is buried, I suppose, Talbot?" she said to her husband.
"I believe so, my dear."
"I should never care to live in this place again, if I were Aurora."
The door opened before Mrs. Bulstrode had finished speaking, and
the mistress of the house came towards them. She welcomed them
affectionately and kindly, taking Lucy in her arms, and greeting her
very tenderly; but Talbot saw that she had changed terribly within the
few days that had passed since her return to Yorkshire, and his heart
sank as he observed her pale face and the dark circles about her hollow
eyes.
Could she have heard----? Could anybody have given her reason to
suppose----?
"You are not well, Mrs. Mellish," he said, as he took her hand.
"No, not very well. This oppressive weather makes my head ache."
"I am sorry to see you looking ill. Where shall I find John?" asked Mr.
Bulstrode.
Aurora's pale face flushed suddenly.
"I--I--don't know," she stammered. "He is not in the house; he has gone
out--to the stables--or to the farm, I think. I'll send for him."
"No, no," Talbot said, intercepting her hand on its way to the bell.
"I'll go and look for him. Lucy will be glad of a chat with you, I dare
say, Aurora, and will not be sorry to get rid of me."
Lucy, with her arm about her cousin's waist, assented to this
arrangement. She was grieved to see the change in Aurora's looks, the
unnatural constraint of her manner.
Mr. Bulstrode walked away, hugging himself upon having done a very wise
thing.
"Lucy is a great deal more likely to find out what is the matter than
I am," he thought. "There is a sort of freemasonry between women, an
electric affinity, which a man's presence always destroys. How deathly
pale Aurora looks! Can it be possible that the trouble I expected has
come so soon?"
He went to the stables, but not so much to look for John Mellish as in
the hope of finding somebody intelligent enough to furnish him with a
better account of the murder than any he had yet heard.
"Some one else, as well as Aurora, must have had a reason for wishing
to get rid of this man," he thought. "There must have been some motive:
revenge,--gain,--something which no one has yet fathomed."
He went into the stable-yard; but he had no opportunity of making his
investigation, for John Mellish was standing in a listless attitude
before a small forge, watching the shoeing of one of his horses. The
young squire looked up with a start as he recognized Talbot, and gave
him his hand, with a few straggling words of welcome. Even in that
moment Mr. Bulstrode saw that there was perhaps a greater change in
John's appearance than in that of Aurora. The Yorkshireman's blue eyes
had lost their brightness, his step its elasticity; his face seemed
sunken and haggard, and he evidently avoided meeting Talbot's eye. He
lounged listlessly away from the forge, walking at his guest's side
in the direction of the stable-gates; but he had the air of a man who
neither knows nor cares whither he is going.
"Shall we go to the house?" he said. "You must want some luncheon after
your journey." He looked at his watch as he said this. It was half-past
three, an hour after the usual time for luncheon at Mellish.
"I've been in the stables all the morning," he said. "We're busy making
our preparations for the York Summer."
"What horses do you run?" Mr. Bulstrode asked, politely affecting to
be interested in a subject that was utterly indifferent to him, in the
hope that stable-talk might rouse John from his listless apathy.
"What horses!" repeated Mr. Mellish vaguely. "I--I hardly know. Langley
manages all that for me, you know; and--I--I forget the names of the
horses he proposed, and----"
Talbot Bulstrode turned suddenly upon his friend, and looked him full
in the face. They had left the stables by this time, and were in a
shady pathway that led through a shrubbery towards the house.
"John Mellish," he said, "this is not fair towards an old friend. You
have something on your mind, and you are trying to hide it from me."
The squire turned away his head.
"I have something on my mind, Talbot," he said quietly. "If you could
help me, I'd ask your help more than any man's. But you can't--you
can't!"
"But suppose I think I _can_ help you?" cried Mr. Bulstrode. "Suppose
I mean to try and do so, whether you will or no? I think I can guess
what your trouble is, John; but I thought you were a braver man than to
give way under it; I thought you were just the sort of man to struggle
through it nobly and bravely, and to get the better of it by your own
strength of will."
"What do you mean!" exclaimed John Mellish. "You can guess--you
know--you thought! Have you no mercy upon me, Talbot Bulstrode? Can't
you see that I'm almost mad, and that this is no time for you to force
your sympathy upon me? Do you want me to betray myself? Do you want me
to betray----"
He stopped suddenly, as if the words had choked him, and, passionately
stamping his foot upon the ground, walked on hurriedly, with his friend
still by his side.
The dining-room looked dreary enough when the two men entered it,
although the table gave promise of a very substantial luncheon; but
there was no one to welcome them, or to officiate at the banquet.
John seated himself wearily in a chair at the bottom of the table.
"You had better go and see if Mrs. Bulstrode and your mistress are
coming to luncheon," he said to a servant, who left the room with his
master's message, and returned three minutes afterwards to say that the
ladies were not coming.
The ladies were seated side by side upon a low sofa in Aurora's
morning-room. Mrs. Mellish sat with her head upon her cousin's
shoulder. She had never had a sister, remember; and gentle Lucy stood
in place of that near and tender comforter. Talbot was perfectly right;
Lucy had accomplished that which he would have failed to bring about.
She had found the key to her cousin's unhappiness.
"Ceased to love you, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bulstrode, echoing the words
that Aurora had last spoken. "Impossible!"
"It is true, Lucy," answered Mrs. Mellish, despairingly. "He has ceased
to love me. There is a black cloud between us now, now that all secrets
are done away with. It is very bitter for me to bear, Lucy; for I
thought we should be so happy and united. But--but it is only natural.
He feels the degradation so much. How can he look at me without
remembering who and what I am? The widow of his groom! Can I wonder
that he avoids me?"
"Avoids you, dear?"
"Yes, avoids me. We have scarcely spoken a dozen words to each other
since the night of our return. He was so good to me, so tender and
devoted during the journey home, telling me again and again that this
discovery had not lessened his love, that all the trial and horror
of the past few days had only shown him the great strength of his
affection; but on the night of our return, Lucy, he changed--changed
suddenly and inexplicably; and now I feel that there is a gulf between
us that can never be passed again. He is alienated from me for ever!"
"Aurora, all this is impossible," remonstrated Lucy. "It is your own
morbid fancy, darling."
"My fancy!" cried Aurora bitterly. "Ah, Lucy, you cannot know how much
I love my husband, if you think that I could be deceived in one look or
tone of his. Is it my fancy that he averts his eyes when he speaks to
me? Is it my fancy that his voice changes when he pronounces my name?
Is it my fancy that he roams about the house like a ghost, and paces up
and down his room half the night through? If these things are my fancy,
Heaven have mercy upon me, Lucy; for I must be going mad."
Mrs. Bulstrode started as she looked at her cousin. Could it be
possible that all the trouble and confusion of the past week or two had
indeed unsettled this poor girl's intellect?
"My poor Aurora!" she murmured, smoothing the heavy hair away from
her cousin's tearful eyes: "my poor darling! how is it possible that
John should change towards you? He loved you so dearly, so devotedly;
surely nothing could alienate him from you."
"I used to think so, Lucy," Aurora murmured in a low, heart-broken
voice; "I used to think nothing could ever come to part us. He said
he would follow me to the uttermost end of the world; he said that no
obstacle on earth should ever separate us; and now----"
She could not finish the sentence, for she broke into convulsive sobs,
and hid her face upon her cousin's shoulder, staining Mrs. Bulstrode's
pretty silk dress with her hot tears.
"Oh, my love, my love!" she cried piteously, "why didn't I run away and
hide myself from you? why didn't I trust to my first instinct, and run
away from you for ever? Any suffering would be better than this! any
suffering would be better than this!"
Her passionate grief merged into a fit of hysterical weeping, in which
she was no longer mistress of herself. She had suffered for the past
few days more bitterly than she had ever suffered yet. Lucy understood
all that. She was one of those people whose tenderness instinctively
comprehends the griefs of others. She knew how to treat her cousin;
and in less than an hour after this emotional outbreak Aurora was
lying on her bed, pale and exhausted, but sleeping peacefully. She
had carried the burden of her sorrow in silence during the past few
days, and had spent sleepless nights in brooding over her trouble.
Her conversation with Lucy had unconsciously relieved her, and she
slumbered calmly after the storm. Lucy sat by the bed watching the
sleeper for some time, and then stole on tiptoe from the room.
She went, of course, to tell her husband all that had passed, and to
take counsel from his sublime wisdom.
She found Talbot in the drawing-room alone; he had eaten a dreary
luncheon in John's company, and had been hastily left by his host
immediately after the meal. There had been no sound of carriage-wheels
upon the gravelled drive all that morning; there had been no callers
at Mellish Park since John's return; for a horrible scandal had spread
itself throughout the length and breadth of the county, and those who
spoke of the young squire and his wife talked in solemn under-tones,
and gravely demanded of each other whether some serious step should
not be taken about the business which was uppermost in every body's
mind.
Lucy told Talbot all that Aurora had said to her. This was no breach of
confidence in the young wife's code of morality; for were not she and
her husband immutably one, and how _could_ she have any secret from him?
"I thought so!" Mr. Bulstrode said, when Lucy had finished her story.
"You thought what, dear?"
"That the breach between John and Aurora was a serious one. Don't look
so sorrowful, my darling. It must be our business to reunite these
divided lovers. You shall comfort Aurora, Lucy; and I'll look after
John."
Talbot Bulstrode kissed his little wife, and went straight away upon
his friendly errand. He found John Mellish in his own room,--the room
in which Aurora had written to him upon the day of her flight; the room
from which the murderous weapon had been stolen by some unknown hand.
John had hidden the rusty pistol in one of the locked drawers of his
Davenport; but it was not to be supposed that the fact of its discovery
could be locked up or hidden away. _That_ had been fully discussed in
the servants' hall; and who shall doubt that it had travelled further,
percolating through some of those sinuous channels which lead away from
every household?
"I want you to come for a walk with me, Mr. John Mellish," said Talbot,
imperatively; "so put on your hat, and come into the park. You are
the most agreeable gentleman I ever had the honour to visit, and the
attention you pay your guests is really something remarkable."
Mr. Mellish made no reply to this speech. He stood before his friend,
pale, silent, and sullen. He was no more like the hearty Yorkshire
squire whom we have known, than he was like Viscount Palmerston or Lord
Clyde. He was transformed out of himself by some great trouble that
was preying upon his mind; and being of a transparent and childishly
truthful disposition, was unable to disguise his anguish.
"John, John!" cried Talbot, "we were little boys together at Rugby, and
have backed each other in a dozen childish fights. Is it kind of you to
withhold your friendship from me now, when I have come here on purpose
to be a friend to you--to you and to Aurora?"
John Mellish turned away his head as his friend mentioned that familiar
name; and the gesture was not lost upon Mr. Bulstrode.
"John, why do you refuse to trust me?"
"I don't refuse. I----Why did you come to this accursed house?" cried
John Mellish, passionately; "why did you come here, Talbot Bulstrode?
You don't know the blight that is upon this place, and those who live
in it, or you would have no more come here than you would willingly
go to a plague-stricken city. Do you know that since I came back from
London not a creature has called at this house? Do you know that when I
and--and--my wife--went to church on Sunday, the people we knew sneaked
away from our path as if we had just recovered from typhus fever? Do
you know that the cursed gaping rabble come from Doncaster to stare
over the park-palings, and that this house is a show to half the West
Riding? Why do you come here? You will be stared at, and grinned at,
and scandalized,--you, who----Go back to London to-night, Talbot, if
you don't want to drive me mad."
"Not till you trust me with your troubles, John," answered Mr.
Bulstrode firmly. "Put on your hat, and come out with me. I want you to
show me the spot where the murder was done."
"You may get some one else to show it you," muttered John, sullenly;
"I'll not go there!"
"John Mellish!" cried Talbot suddenly, "am I to think you a coward and
a fool? By the heaven that's above me, I shall think so if you persist
in this nonsense. Come out into the park with me; I have the claim of
past friendship upon you, and I'll not have that claim set aside by any
folly of yours."
The two men went out upon the lawn, John complying moodily enough with
his friend's request, and walked silently across the park towards that
portion of the wood in which James Conyers had met his death. They had
reached one of the loneliest and shadiest avenues in this wood, and
were, in fact, close against the spot from which Samuel Prodder had
watched his niece and her companion on the night of the murder, when
Talbot stopped suddenly, and laid his hand on the squire's shoulder.
"John," he said, in a determined tone, "before we go to look at the
place where this bad man died, you must tell me your trouble."
Mr. Mellish drew himself up proudly, and looked at the speaker with
gloomy defiance lowering upon his face.
"I will tell no man that which I do not choose to tell," he said
firmly; and then with a sudden change that was terrible to see, he
cried impetuously, "Why do you torment me, Talbot? I tell you that
I can't trust you--I can't trust any one upon earth. If--if I told
you--the horrible thought that--if I told you, it would be your duty
to--I--Talbot, Talbot, have pity upon me--let me alone--go away from
me--I----"
Stamping furiously, as if he would have trampled down the cowardly
despair for which he despised himself, and beating his forehead with
his clenched fists, John Mellish turned away from his friend, and,
leaning against the gnarled branch of a great oak, wept aloud. Talbot
Bulstrode waited till the paroxysm had passed away before he spoke
again; but when his friend had grown calmer, he linked his arm about
him, and drew him away almost as tenderly as if the big Yorkshireman
had been some sorrowing woman, sorely in need of manly help and
comfort.
"John, John," he said gravely, "thank God for this; thank God for
anything that breaks the ice between us. I know what your trouble is,
poor old friend, and I know that you have no cause for it. Hold up your
head, man, and look straightforward to a happy future. I know the black
thought that has been gnawing at your poor foolish manly heart: _you
think that Aurora murdered the groom!_"
John Mellish, started, shuddering convulsively.
"No, no," he gasped; "who said so--who said----?"
"You think this, John," continued Talbot Bulstrode; "and you do her the
most grievous wrong that ever yet was done to woman; a more shameful
wrong than I committed when I thought that Aurora Floyd had been guilty
of some base intrigue."
"You don't know----" stammered John.
"I don't know! I know all, and foresaw trouble for you, before _you_
saw the cloud that was in the sky. But I never dreamt of this. I
thought the foolish country people would suspect your wife, as it
always pleases people to try and fix a crime upon the person in whom
that crime would be more particularly atrocious. I was prepared for
this; but to think that you--you, John, who should have learned to know
your wife by this time--to think that you should suspect the woman you
have loved of a foul and treacherous murder!"
"How do we know that the--that the man was murdered?" cried John
vehemently. "Who says that the deed was treacherously done? He may have
goaded her beyond endurance, insulted her generous pride, stung her to
the very quick, and in the madness of her passion--having that wretched
pistol in her possession--she may----"
"Stop!" interrupted Talbot. "What pistol? you told me the weapon had
not been found."
"It was found upon the night of our return."
"Yes; but why do you associate this weapon with Aurora? What do you
mean by saying that the pistol was in her possession?"
"Because--O my God! Talbot, why do you wring these things from me?"
"For your own good, and for the justification of an innocent woman;
so help me, Heaven!" answered Mr. Bulstrode. "Do not be afraid to be
candid with me, John. Nothing would ever make me believe Aurora Mellish
guilty of this crime."
The Yorkshireman turned suddenly towards his friend, and leaning upon
Talbot Bulstrode's shoulder, wept for the second time during that
woodland ramble.
"May God in heaven bless you for this, Talbot!" he cried passionately.
"Ah, my love, my dear, what a wretch I have been to you! but Heaven is
my witness that, even in my worst agony of doubt and horror, my love
has never lessened. It never could!--it never could!"
"John, old fellow," said Mr. Bulstrode, cheerfully, "perhaps, instead
of talking this nonsense, which leaves me entirely in the dark as to
everything that has happened since you left London, you will do me the
favour to enlighten me as to the cause of these foolish suspicions."
They had reached the ruined summer-house and the pool of stagnant
water, on the margin of which James Conyers had met with his death.
Mr. Bulstrode seated himself upon a pile of broken timber, while
John Mellish paced up and down the smooth patch of turf between the
summer-house and the water, and told, disjointedly enough, the story
of the finding of the pistol, which had been taken out of his room.
"I saw that pistol upon the day of the murder," he said. "I took
particular notice of it; for I was cleaning my guns that morning, and
I left them all in confusion while I went down to the lodge to see the
trainer. When I came back--I----"
"Well, what then?"
"Aurora had been setting my guns in order."
"You argue, therefore, that your wife took the pistol?"
John looked piteously at his friend; but Talbot's grave smile reassured
him.
"No one else had permission to go into the room," he answered. "I keep
my papers and accounts there, you know; and it's an understood thing
that none of the servants are allowed to go there, except when they
clean the room."
"To be sure! But the room is not locked, I suppose?"
"Locked! of course not!"
"And the windows--which open to the ground--are sometimes left open, I
dare say?"
"Almost always in such weather as this."
"Then, my dear John, it may be just possible that some one who had
not permission to enter the room did, nevertheless, enter it, for the
purpose of abstracting this pistol. Have you asked Aurora why she took
upon herself to rearrange your guns?--she had never done such a thing
before, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, very often. I'm rather in the habit of leaving them about
after cleaning them; and my darling understands all about them as well
as I do. She has often put them away for me."
"Then there was nothing particular in her doing so upon the day of the
murder. Have you asked her how long she was in your room, and whether
she can remember seeing this particular pistol, among others?'
"Ask her!" exclaimed John; "how could I ask her, when----"
"When you have been mad enough to suspect her. No, my poor old friend;
you made the same mistake that I committed at Felden. You presupposed
the guilt of the woman you loved; and you were too great a coward
to investigate the evidence upon which your suspicions were built.
Had I been wise enough, instead of blindly questioning this poor
bewildered girl, to tell her plainly what it was that I suspected, the
incontrovertible truth would have flashed out of her angry eyes, and
one indignant denial would have told me how basely I had wronged her.
You shall not make the mistake that I made, John. You must go frankly
and fearlessly to the wife you love, tell her of the suspicion that
overclouds her fame, and implore her to help you to the uttermost of
her power in unravelling the mystery of this man's death. The assassin
_must_ be found, John; for so long as he remains undiscovered, you and
your wife will be the victims of every penny-a-liner who finds himself
at a loss for a paragraph."
"Yes," Mr. Mellish answered bitterly, "the papers have been hard at
it already; and there's been a fellow hanging about the place for the
last few days whom I've had a very strong inclination to thrash. Some
reporter, I suppose, come to pick up information."
"I suppose so," Talbot answered thoughtfully; "what sort of a man was
he?"
"A decent-looking fellow enough; but a Londoner, I fancy, and--stay!"
exclaimed John suddenly, "there's a man coming towards us from the
turnstile; and unless I'm considerably mistaken, it's the very fellow."
Mr. Mellish was right.
The wood was free to any foot-passenger who pleased to avail himself
of the pleasant shelter of spreading beeches, and the smooth carpet of
mossy turf, rather than tramp wearily upon the dusty highway.
The stranger advancing from the turnstile was a decent-looking person,
dressed in dark tight-fitting clothes, and making no unnecessary or
ostentatious display of linen, for his coat was buttoned tightly to the
chin. He looked at Talbot and John as he passed them,--not insolently,
or even inquisitively, but with one brightly rapid and searching
glance, which seemed to take in the most minute details in the
appearance of both gentlemen. Then, walking on a few paces, he stopped
and looked thoughtfully at the pond, and the bank above it.
"This is the place, I think, gentlemen?" he said, in a frank and rather
free-and-easy manner.
Talbot returned his look with interest.
"If you mean the place where the murder was committed, it is," he said.
"Ah, I understood so," answered the stranger, by no means abashed.
He looked at the bank, regarding it, now from one point, now from
another, like some skilful upholsterer taking the measure of a piece of
furniture. Then walking slowly round the pond, he seemed to plumb the
depth of the stagnant water with his small gray eyes.
Talbot Bulstrode watched the man as he took this mental photograph of
the place. There was a business-like composure in his manner, which
was entirely different to the eager curiosity of a scandalmonger and a
busybody.
Mr. Bulstrode rose as the man walked away, and went slowly after him.
"Stop where you are, John," he said, as he left his companion; "I'll
find out who this fellow is."
He walked on, and overtook the stranger at about a hundred yards from
the pond.
"I want to have a few words with you before you leave the Park, my
friend," he said quietly: "unless I'm very much mistaken, you are a
member of the detective police, and come here with credentials from
Scotland Yard."
The man shook his head, with a quiet smile.
"I'm not obliged to tell everybody my business," he answered coolly;
"this footpath is a public thoroughfare, I believe?"
"Listen to me, my good fellow," said Mr. Bulstrode. "It may serve your
purpose to beat about the bush; but I have no reason to do so, and
therefore may as well come to the point at once. If you are sent here
for the purpose of discovering the murderer of James Conyers, you can
be more welcome to no one than to the master of that house."
He pointed to the Gothic chimneys as he spoke.
"If those who employ you have promised you a liberal reward, Mr.
Mellish will willingly treble the amount they may have offered you.
He would not give you cause to complain of his liberality, should you
succeed in accomplishing the purpose of your errand. If you think you
will gain anything by underhand measures, and by keeping yourself dark,
you are very much mistaken; for no one can be better able or more
willing to give you assistance in this than Mr. and Mrs. Mellish."
The detective--for he had tacitly admitted the fact of his
profession--looked doubtfully at Talbot Bulstrode.
"You're a lawyer, I suppose?" he said.
"I am Mr. Talbot Bulstrode, member for Penruthy, and the husband of
Mrs. Mellish's first cousin."
The detective bowed.
"My name is Joseph Grimstone, of Scotland Yard and Ball's Pond," he
said; "and I certainly see no objection to our working together. If
Mr. Mellish is prepared to act on the square, I'm prepared to act with
him, and to accept any reward his generosity may offer. But if he or
any friend of his wants to hoodwink Joseph Grimstone, he'd better think
twice about the game before he tries it on; that's all."
Mr. Bulstrode took no notice of this threat, but looked at his watch
before replying to the detective.
"It's a quarter-past six," he said. "Mr. Mellish dines at seven. Can
you call at the house, say at nine, this evening? You shall then have
all the assistance it is in our power to give you."
"Certainly, sir. At nine this evening."
"We shall be prepared to receive you. Good afternoon."
Mr. Grimstone touched his hat, and strolled quietly away under the
shadow of the beeches, while Talbot Bulstrode walked back to rejoin his
friend.
It may be as well to take this opportunity of stating the reason of
the detective's early appearance at Mellish Park. Upon the day of
the inquest, and consequently the next day but one after the murder,
two anonymous letters, worded in the same manner, and written by the
same hand, were received respectively by the head of the Doncaster
constabulary and by the chief of the Scotland-Yard detective
confederacy.
These anonymous communications--written in a hand which, in spite of
all attempt at disguise, still retained the spidery peculiarities of
feminine caligraphy--pointed, by a sinuous and inductive process of
reasoning, at Aurora Mellish as the murderess of James Conyers. I need
scarcely say that the writer was no other than Mrs. Powell. She has
disappeared for ever from my story, and I have no wish to blacken a
character which can ill afford to be slandered. The ensign's widow
actually believed in the guilt of her beautiful patroness. It is so
easy for an envious woman to believe horrible things of the more
prosperous sister whom she hates.