REUNION.
"We are on the verge of a precipice," Talbot Bulstrode thought, as he
prepared for dinner in the comfortable dressing-room allotted to him
at Mellish,--"we are on the verge of a precipice, and nothing but a
bold grapple with the worst can save us. Any reticence, any attempt at
keeping back suspicious facts, or hushing up awkward coincidences would
be fatal to us. If John had made away with this pistol with which the
deed was done, he would have inevitably fixed a most fearful suspicion
upon his wife. Thank God I came here to-day! We must look matters
straight in the face, and our first step must be to secure Aurora's
help. So long as she is silent as to her share in the events of that
day and night, there is a link missing in the chain, and we are all at
sea. John must speak to her to-night; or perhaps it will be better for
me to speak."
Mr. Bulstrode went down to the drawing-room, where he found his friend
pacing up and down, solitary and wretched.
"The ladies are going to dine up-stairs," said Mr. Mellish, as Talbot
joined him. "I have just had a message to say so. Why does she avoid
me, Talbot? why does my wife avoid me like this? We have scarcely
spoken to each other for days."
"Shall I tell you why, you foolish John?" answered Mr. Bulstrode. "Your
wife avoids you because you have chosen to alienate yourself from her,
and because she thinks, poor girl, that she has lost your affection.
She fancies that the discovery of her first marriage has caused a
revulsion of feeling, and that you no longer love her."
"No longer love her!" cried John. "O my God! she ought to know that, if
I could give my life for her fifty times over, I would do it, to save
her one pang. I would do it, so help me, Heaven, though she were the
guiltiest wretch that had ever crawled the earth!"
"But no one asks you to do anything of the kind," said Mr. Bulstrode.
"You are only requested to be reasonable and patient, to put a proper
trust in Providence, and to be guided by people who are rather less
impetuous than your ungovernable self."
"I will do what you like, Talbot; I will do what you like."
Mr. Mellish pressed his friend's hand. Had he ever thought, when he
had seen Talbot an accepted lover at Felden, and had hated him with a
savage and wild Indian-like fury, that he would come to be thus humbly
grateful to him; thus pitifully dependent upon his superior wisdom? He
wrung the young politician's hand, and promised to be as submissive as
a child beneath his guidance.
In compliance, therefore, with Talbot's commands, he ate a few morsels
of fish, and drank a couple of glasses of sherry; and having thus gone
through a show of dining, he went with Mr. Bulstrode to seek Aurora.
She was sitting with her cousin in the morning-room, looking terribly
pale in the dim dusk of the August evening,--pale and shadowy in her
loose white muslin dress. She had only lately risen after a long
feverish slumber, and had pretended to dine out of courtesy to her
guest. Lucy had tried in vain to comfort her cousin. This passionate,
impetuous, spoiled child of fortune and affection refused all
consolation, crying out again and again that she had lost her husband's
love, and that there was nothing left for her upon earth.
But in the very midst of one of these despondent speeches, she sprang
up from her seat, erect and trembling, with her parted lips quivering
and her dark eyes dilated, startled by the sound of a familiar step,
which within the last few days had been seldom heard in the corridor
outside her room. She tried to speak, but her voice failed her; and in
another moment the door had been dashed open by a strong hand, and her
husband stood in the room, holding out his arms and calling to her.
"Aurora! Aurora! my own dear love, my own poor darling!"
She was folded to his breast before she knew that Talbot Bulstrode
stood close behind him.
"My own darling," John said, "my own dearest, you cannot tell how
cruelly I have wronged you. But, oh, my love, the wrong has brought
unendurable torture with it. My poor guiltless girl! how could I--how
could I----But I was mad, and it was only when Talbot----"
Aurora lifted her head from her husband's breast and looked wonderingly
into his face, utterly unable to guess the meaning of these broken
sentences.
Talbot laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder. "You will frighten
your wife if you go on in this manner, John," he said quietly. "You
mustn't take any notice of his agitation, my dear Mrs. Mellish. There
is no cause, believe me, for all this outcry. Will you sit down by Lucy
and compose yourself? It is eight o'clock, and between this and nine we
have some serious business to settle."
"Serious business!" repeated Aurora vaguely. She was intoxicated by her
sudden happiness. She had no wish to ask any explanation of the mystery
of the past few days. It was all over, and her faithful husband loved
her as devotedly and tenderly as ever. How could she wish to know more
than this?
She seated herself at Lucy's side, in obedience to Talbot; but she
still held her husband's hand, she still looked in his face, for the
moment most supremely unconscious that the scheme of creation included
anything beyond this stalwart Yorkshireman.
Talbot Bulstrode lighted the lamp upon Aurora's writing-table,--a
shaded lamp, which only dimly illuminated the twilight room,--and then,
taking his seat near it, said gravely--
"My dear Mrs. Mellish, I shall be compelled to say something which I
fear may inflict a terrible shock upon you. But this is no time for
reservation; scarcely a time for ordinary delicacy. Will you trust in
the love and friendship of those who are around you, and promise to
bear this new trial bravely? I believe and hope that it will be a very
brief one."
Aurora looked wonderingly at her husband, not at Talbot.
"A new trial?" she said inquiringly.
"You know that the murderer of James Conyers has not yet been
discovered?" said Mr. Bulstrode.
"Yes, yes; but what of that?"
"My dear Mrs. Mellish, my dear Aurora! the world is apt to take a
morbid delight in horrible ideas. There are some people who think that
you are guilty of this crime!"
"_I!_"
She rose suddenly from her low seat, and turned her face towards the
lamp-light, with a look of such blank amazement, such utter wonder and
bewilderment, that had Talbot Bulstrode until that moment believed her
guilty, he must thenceforth and for ever have been firmly convinced of
her innocence.
"_I!_" she repeated.
Then turning to her husband, with a sudden alteration in her face, that
blank amazement changing to a look of sorrow, mingled with reproachful
wonder, she said in a low voice--
"_You_ thought this of me, John; _you_ thought this!"
John Mellish bowed his head before her.
"I did, my dear," he murmured--"God forgive me for my wicked folly--I
did think this, Aurora. But I pitied you, and was sorry for you, my own
dear love; and when I thought it most, I would have died to save you
from shame or sorrow. My love has never changed, Aurora; my love has
never changed."
She gave him her hand, and once more resumed her seat. She sat for
some moments in silence, as if trying to collect her thoughts, and to
understand the meaning of this strange scene.
"Who suspects me of this crime?" she said presently. "Has any one else
suspected me? Any one besides--my husband?"
"I can scarcely tell you, my dear Mrs. Mellish," answered Talbot; "when
an event of this kind takes place, it is very difficult to say who may
or may not be suspected. Different persons set up different theories:
one man writes to a newspaper to declare that, in his opinion, the
crime was committed by some person within the house; another man
writes as positively to another paper, asserting that the murderer was
undoubtedly a stranger. Each man brings forward a mass of suppositious
evidence in favour of his own argument, and each thinks a great deal
more of proving his own cleverness than of furthering the ends of
justice. No shadow of slander must rest upon this house, or upon those
who live in it. It is necessary, therefore, imperatively necessary,
that the real murderer should be found. A London detective is already
at work. These men are very clever; some insignificant circumstance,
forgotten by those most interested in discovering the truth, would
often be enough to set a detective on the right track. This man is
coming here at nine o'clock; and we are to give him all the assistance
we can. Will you help us, Aurora?"
"Help you! How?"
"By telling us all you know of the night of the murder. Why were you in
the wood that night?"
"I was there to meet the dead man."
"For what purpose?"
Aurora was silent for some moments, and then looking up with a bold,
half-defiant glance, she said suddenly--
"Talbot Bulstrode, before you blame or despise me, remember how the
tie that bound me to this man had been broken. The law would have set
me free from him, if I had been brave enough to appeal to the law; and
was I to suffer all my life because of the mistake I had made in not
demanding a release from the man whose gross infidelity entitled me
to be divorced from him? Heaven knows I had borne with him patiently
enough. I had endured his vulgarity, his insolence, his presumption; I
had gone penniless while he spent my father's money in a gambling-booth
on a race-course, and dinnerless while he drank champagne with cheats
and reprobates. Remember this, when you blame me most. I went into the
wood that night to meet him for the last time upon this earth. He had
promised me that he would emigrate to Australia upon the payment of a
certain sum of money."
"And you went that night to pay it to him?" cried Talbot eagerly.
"I did. He was insolent, as he always was; for he hated me for having
discovered that which shut him out from all claim upon my fortune. He
hated himself for his folly in not having played his cards better.
Angry words passed between us; but it ended in his declaring his
intention of starting for Liverpool early the next morning, and--"
"You gave him the money?"
"Yes."
"But tell me,--tell me, Aurora," cried Talbot, almost too eager to find
words, "how long had you left him when you heard the report of the
pistol?'
"Not more than ten minutes."
"John Mellish," exclaimed Mr. Bulstrode, "was there any money found
upon the person of the murdered man?"
"No--yes; I believe there was a little silver," Mr. Mellish answered
vaguely.
"A little silver!" cried Talbot contemptuously. "Aurora, what was the
sum you gave James Conyers upon the night of his death?"
"Two thousand pounds."
"In a cheque?"
"No; in notes."
"And that money has never been heard of since?"
No; John Mellish declared that he had never heard of it.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Bulstrode; "we shall find the murderer."
"What do you mean?" asked John.
"Whoever killed James Conyers, killed him in order to rob him of the
money that he had upon him at the time of his death."
"But who could have known of the money?" asked Aurora.
"Anybody; the pathway through the wood is a public thoroughfare. Your
conversation with the murdered man may have been overheard. You talked
about the money, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"Thank God, thank God! Ask your wife's pardon for the cruel wrong you
have done her, John, and then come downstairs with me. It's past nine,
and I dare say Mr. Grimstone is waiting for us. But stay,--one word,
Aurora. The pistol with which this man was killed was taken from this
house, from John's room. Did you know that?"
"No; how should I know it?" Mrs. Mellish asked naïvely.
"That fact is against the theory of the murder having been committed by
a stranger. Is there any one of the servants whom you could suspect of
such a crime, John?"
"No," answered Mr. Mellish decisively; "not one."
"And yet the person who committed the murder must have been the person
who stole your pistol. You, John, declare that very pistol to have been
in your possession upon the morning before the murder."
"Most certainly."
"You put John's guns back into their places upon that morning, Aurora,"
said Mr. Bulstrode; "do you remember seeing that particular pistol?"
"No," Mrs. Mellish answered; "I should not have known it from the
others."
"You did not find any of the servants in the room that morning?"
"Oh, no," Aurora answered immediately; "Mrs. Powell came into the room
while I was there. She was always following me about; and I suppose she
had heard me talking to----"
"Talking to whom?"
"To James Conyers's hanger-on and messenger, Stephen Hargraves--the
'Softy,' as they call him."
"You were talking to him? Then this Stephen Hargraves was in the room
that morning?"
"Yes; he brought me a message from the murdered man, and took back my
answer."
"Was he alone in the room?"
"Yes; I found him there when I went in, expecting to find John. I
dislike the man,--unjustly, perhaps; for he is a poor, half-witted
creature, who I dare say scarcely knows right from wrong; and I was
angry at seeing him. He must have come in through the window."
A servant entered the room at this moment. He came to say that Mr.
Grimstone had been waiting below for some time, and was anxious to see
Mr. Bulstrode.
Talbot and John went down-stairs together. They found Mr. Joseph
Grimstone sitting at a table in a comfortable room that had lately
been sacred to Mrs. Powell, with the shaded lamp drawn close to his
elbow, and a greasy little memorandum-book open before him. He was
thoughtfully employed making notes in this memorandum-book with a
stumpy morsel of lead-pencil--when do these sort of people begin their
pencils, and how is it that they always seem to have arrived at the
stump?--when the two gentlemen entered.
John Mellish leaned against the mantel-piece, and covered his face with
his hand. For any practical purpose, he might as well have been in his
own room. He knew nothing of Talbot's reason for this interview with
the detective officer. He had no shadowy idea, no growing suspicion
shaping itself slowly out of the confusion and obscurity, of the
identity of the murderer. He only knew that his Aurora was innocent;
that she had indignantly refuted his base suspicion; and that he had
seen the truth, radiant as the light of inspiration, shining out of her
beautiful face.
Mr. Bulstrode rang, and ordered a bottle of sherry for the delectation
of the detective; and then, in a careful and business-like manner,
he recited all that he had been able to discover upon the subject of
the murder. Joseph Grimstone listened very quietly, following Talbot
Bulstrode with a shining track of lead-pencil hieroglyphics over
the greasy paper, just as Tom Thumb strewed crumbs of bread in the
forest-pathway, with a view to his homeward guidance. The detective
only looked up now and then to drink a glass of sherry, and smack his
lips with the quiet approval of a connoisseur. When Talbot had told all
that he had to tell, Mr. Grimstone thrust the memorandum-book into a
very tight breast-pocket, and taking his hat from under the chair upon
which he had been seated, prepared to depart.
"If this information about the money is quite correct, sir," he said,
"I think I can see my way through the affair; that is, if we can have
the numbers of the notes. I can't stir a peg without the numbers of the
notes."
Talbot's countenance fell. Here was a death-blow. Was it likely that
Aurora, that impetuous and unbusiness-like girl, had taken the numbers
of the notes, which, in utter scorn and loathing, she had flung as a
last bribe to the man she hated?
"I'll go and make inquiries of Mrs. Mellish," he said; "but I fear it
is scarcely likely I shall get the information you want."
He left the room; but five minutes afterwards returned triumphant.
"Mrs. Mellish had the notes from her father," he said. "Mr. Floyd took
a list of the numbers before he gave his daughter the money."
"Then if you'll be so good as to drop Mr. Floyd a line, asking for
that list by return of post, I shall know how to act," replied the
detective. "I haven't been idle this afternoon, gentlemen, any more
than you. I went back after I parted with you, Mr. Bulstrode, and had
another look at the pond. I found something to pay me for my trouble."
He took from his waistcoat-pocket a small object, which he held between
his finger and thumb.
Talbot and John looked intently at this dingy object, but could make
nothing out of it. It seemed to be a mere disc of rusty metal.
"It's neither more nor less than a brass button," the detective said,
with a smile of quiet superiority; "maker's name, Crosby, Birmingham.
There's marks upon it which seem uncommon like blood; and unless I'm
very much mistaken, it'll be found to fit pretty correct into the
barrel of your pistol, Mr. Mellish. So what we've got to do is to find
a gentleman wearin', or havin' in his possession, a waistcoat with
buttons by Crosby, Birmingham, and one button missin'; and if we happen
to find the same gentleman changin' one of the notes that Mr. Floyd
took the numbers of, I don't think we shall be _very_ far off layin'
our hands on the man we want."
With which oracular speech Mr. Grimstone departed, charged with a
commission to proceed forthwith to Doncaster, to order the immediate
printing and circulating of a hundred bills, offering a reward of
200_l._ for such information as would lead to the apprehension of the
murderer of James Conyers. This reward to be given by Mr. Mellish, and
to be over and above any reward offered by the Government.