THE STRONG-ROOM.
"No chance of anybody hearing him but the dead folk in the churchyard,
and they'll only grin to themselves and take no notice." So muttered
Pringle to himself as he stood at the foot of the stairs and listened
to Van Duren's cry for help.
And he was right. So long as the doors were kept shut, Van Duren's
loudest cries would not penetrate beyond the basement-floor of the old
house. In the office above people might, and did, come and go on
business, but not the faintest echo of that terrible cry of despair,
that was so near and yet so far away, ever reached them.
Pringle was there, as usual, to attend to the different callers, so
far as it was possible for him to do so in the absence of his chief.
Many were the inquiries during the day as to the probable date of Van
Duren's return.
"He may be here at any time, or he may be away for another week. Most
uncertain in his movements," Pringle would say to the inquirers. And
as soon as they were gone he would rub his hands, and chuckle to
himself, and mutter: "Revenged at last! Every dog has his day, and
mine has come now."
And so the day slowly wore itself through till evening came round
again. Pringle shut up the office at the usual time, and then, after a
hearty tea, he prepared to sally forth for the evening's enjoyment. He
told himself that he would take the entire round of the haunts where
he was known, indulging himself with a glass or two at each of them,
and have, altogether, a very pleasant time of it.
Before starting he went to bid Van Duren good-bye.
"If the postman comes while I'm out, you'll kindly take in the
letters, won't you?" he said, with a sneer. "There have been more
inquiries than usual for you to-day. What fun it was to send them
off--some with one excuse, and some with another--and you within a
dozen yards of them all the time! But I must go now. You are very
pleasant company, Mr. Van Duren, but I must leave you for a little
while."
Thus saying, Pringle locked the outer door, and having made sure that
he had the latch-key in his pocket, he put down the kitchen gas, and
let himself out by way of the front door, which he clashed to after
him with a bang loud enough to wake every dismal echo that had its
lodgment in the dismal old house in the churchyard.
It was close upon midnight when Jonas Pringle came picking his way
carefully along the silent streets in the direction of Spur Alley.
This care on his part was necessitated by the number and strength of
the potations in which he had indulged during the evening. He knew
quite well what he was about; he knew that he had taken more than was
good for him; he knew that his course along the streets was rather a
mazy one; he knew that his speech was a little thick, and that short
words were infinitely preferable to long ones; but for all that, it
was only his legs that were affected: his head was still as coldly
calculating as ever it had been.
He had just turned the corner of Spur Alley, and was within a few
yards of the house, when suddenly a woman, who had been sitting in the
shadow of the steps, sprang to her feet, stood for a moment gazing
fixedly at him, and then took to her heels and quickly disappeared
round the opposite corner. A presentiment that it was his daughter
shot through Pringle's heart the moment he set eyes on her. He shouted
to her to stop, but she never even turned her head. He made an
abortive attempt to run after her, but that was equally unavailing.
Then he sat down on the steps where his daughter had been sitting--for
he felt sure that it was she--and began to cry.
He was roused by the clocks striking the half-hour after midnight. He
got up, shivering from head to foot, and let himself in by means of
the latch-key. He did not go downstairs, but stumbled his way to his
own room, and, without undressing, flung himself on his pallet, and
slept unbrokenly till long after broad daylight.
He lighted the kitchen fire and got his breakfast ready before going
near his prisoner. Last night's excitement and dissipation had left
him, if such a thing were possible, harder and more cruel than before.
Not one single grain of pity for his wretched victim made itself felt
in his heart when, after breakfast, he went and knocked at the door of
the strong-room. He was still convinced that it was his daughter whom
he had seen over-night, and the sight of her only served to freshen up
his wrongs, and to intensify a hatred that needed no additional fuel.
"Max Van Duren, are you still alive?" The cried, rapping with his key
on the door.
A deep groan was the only reply for a little while.
Pringle kept on hammering at the door. "Why don't you answer me?" he
screamed.
"For Heaven's sake, Pringle, give me a drop of water, or else leave me
to die in peace!" It was hardly to be recognized as the voice of Van
Duren, so faint and full of anguish was it.
Pringle's only answer was a laugh.
"Pringle, I am dying!" pleaded the imprisoned man. "The wound on my
head has opened afresh, and I am slowly bleeding to death. I am
too weak to stand. A few hours will end everything. Give me some
water--give me a pillow for my head--give me a little light--and then
you may leave me to die."
"All very fine, Mr. Van, but you don't get over me with any of your
dodges. Once get the door open it would be all over with me."
"Pringle, I swear to you that I am dying--that I have not strength to
walk across the floor."
"Then die," cried Pringle. "It is all you are fit for. Ask for no pity
from me." And with that he strode away without waiting to hear another
word, and shut the outer door behind him.
He stayed in the office as usual till evening; but he did not go near
Van Duren again all day. He had found a bottle of brandy upstairs in
Van Duren's room; this he appropriated, and his devotions were paid to
it so often during the day, that when evening came very little of it
was left. When he had closed the office, he sallied out, as on the
previous evening, but still without visiting his prisoner. He had no
appetite to-day; he could not eat. All he craved was more drink, and
so long as he had money in his pocket there was no difficulty in
getting that. Again he took what he called his rounds, and again it
was close on midnight when he found himself back in Spur Alley.
He was fumbling with his latch-key, when a hand was laid lightly on
his shoulder. He had heard no sound of footsteps, and he turned with a
low cry of terror. He turned and saw that it was his daughter who had
touched him.
"Why, Jessie--Jessie, my darling! is that you?" he exclaimed.
"Yes, it is I," said the woman, bitterly. "What have you done with Max
Van Duren?"
"Oh, never mind him just now. But why don't you kiss me, Jessie? Why
don't you kiss the foolish old man that has never ceased to love you,
and search for you, and long for you, day and night?" He was half
laughing and half crying as he spoke.
She just put her lips to his cheek, but he was not satisfied till he
had drawn her to him and she had kissed him again and again. Then she
repeated her question: "Father, what have you done with Max Van
Duren?"
"Oh, I've got the scoundrel in safe custody, never fear!"
"In safe custody! What do you mean?" she asked, anxiously.
"Come inside, and I'll tell you all about it."
He had succeeded in opening the door by this time, and his daughter
followed him into the dark entrance-hall.
"You needn't be afraid of meeting anything worse than black-beetles,"
he said, with a chuckle. "Follow me, Jessie, and mind the stairs," he
added, when he had bolted the front door. "There's fifteen of 'em;
I've counted them many a time. We shall find a glimmer in the kitchen,
I dare say."
They groped their way down, and entered the room.
"Many a worse crib than this," said Pringle, as he turned the gas full
on.
Then he stirred the fire, and drew a chair up for his daughter and
another for himself, and produced a bottle of brandy.
"And now for a comfortable little confab," he said, gleefully. "I've
quite a lot to tell you, dear; and I dare say you have something to
tell me."
"Suppose you tell me your news first," said the woman.
Neither in her manner towards him, nor in her mode of addressing him,
was there the slightest trace of tenderness, or any token by which a
stranger would have guessed that the man before her was her father,
whom she had not spoken to for several years. Her hard mouth and her
watchful eyes never for a moment relaxed their hardness or their
watchfulness.
"Funny, wasn't it," began Pringle, rubbing his lean, yellow hands in
front of the fire, but with his eyes fixed on his daughter, "that I
should have been Van Duren's clerk for three years before finding out
who he was?"
"And how did you find it out at last?" asked Jessie, without any
apparent emotion.
"I was rooting about among his papers one day, when I found some of
your letters, my dear. It was the greatest surprise I've ever had in
my life."
"He has kept my letters, has he?" said the woman, in an eager,
passionate way, breaking for a moment through the restraint she had
hitherto put upon herself.
"He _has_ kept them; so much the worse for him, as things have turned
out," said Pringle, grimly.
"What did you do next?"
"I put back the letters where I had found them, and waited for him."
"And waited for him?" cried the woman, wonderingly.
"Yes; he was away from home at the time I discovered the letters, and
I waited till he came back."
"And what did you do then?"
"It was only the night before last that he got back home. I had made
up my mind from the first how to act. He was only here for the night.
He was going to start away again next morning; but I guessed he
wouldn't leave without visiting the safe in the strong-room. So
instead of going up to bed, I came down here and waited in the dark
for him. I seemed to have been waiting a month, but it was only a few
hours, when he came. He went forward into the strong-room, and turned
on the gas. Then I stole swiftly after him. He did not hear me--he did
not see me till the last moment; and then it was too late. Before he
could reach the iron door, I had shut it on him and turned the key."
"You locked him in!"
"I locked him in. I made him my prisoner; and there he is at this very
moment."
The woman had changed colour and started to her feet when her father
made this disclosure. But another thought seemed to strike her, and
she sat down again, her ashy face turned full upon him, and a strange,
half-savage, half-defiant look in her eyes, which it was just as well
that the old man did not notice.
Pringle lighted his pipe.
"There's nothing like taking things comfortably," he said. "What a
fanny girl you are," he added presently. "I thought when you heard how
I had bowled out the scoundrel who had blasted both your life and
mine, that the least you could say would be, 'Well done!' But there
you sit as cool as a cucumber, and as mum as a mouse--just as if I had
been telling you a bit of news out of yesterday's paper."
"Your news has taken me so much by surprise, that I don't know what to
say," replied Jessie; "I want time to think it all over."
"But aren't you glad, girl, that we've got the villain fast? Isn't it
sweet to you to feel that his turn has come at last? My wrongs are
deep, but yours are deeper. You ought to exult in what I've done!"
"So I do, but I can hardly realize it yet. I keep on fancying it must
all be a dream."
"It's an uncommon ugly reality as far as he's concerned," answered
Pringle. "I don't think he'll trouble us long. I think another day and
night will about finish him."
Gradually the warmth of the fire, and the brandy he had taken and was
still taking, had a somnolent effect upon Pringle. He found his
eyelids closing involuntarily.
"I don't think an hour or two's snooze would be a bad sort of thing,"
he said.
"Where is this strong-room that you talk about?" asked Jessie.
"Why, close by here--on the bottom floor--just at the end of that
passage."
"And the keys--who keeps them?"
"Who should keep them but me? I've got them safe enough, never you
fear," and he tapped his pocket to verify the fact.
He poured himself out some more brandy, and when he had drunk it she
assisted him to the sofa, lowered the gas a little, and then took up
her own position in the big easy-chair on the opposite side of the
fireplace.
A few minutes later her father's deep, regular breathing told her that
he was fast asleep.
Then she crossed noiselessly over to where he was lying, and began
to feel for the pocket that held his keys. She was not long in
finding what she wanted. Then she lighted a candle, and taking the
candle-stick in one hand and the two keys in the other (after giving
a last look at her father), she set out in search of the strong-room.
The little Dutch clock in the kitchen was on the stroke of eight when
Jonas Pringle opened his eyes. He opened them, rubbed them, shut them,
and opened them again. He might well stare and ask himself whether he
had not taken leave of his senses. On a mattress in front of the
kitchen fire, a coverlid thrown over him, lay the form of Max Van
Duren. His eyes were shut and he was breathing heavily. Pringle was
still staring at this terrible object, and trying to pull his wits
together, when his attention was attracted by the noise of footsteps
descending the stairs, and next moment Jessie ushered into the room a
stranger, who at once crossed to where Van Duren was lying, and gazed
fixedly down on him. The stranger was, in fact, a doctor whom Jessie
had summoned by bribing a passing milk-boy to go and fetch him.
Van Duren was an utter stranger to him.
"Who are you, and what have you come for?" screamed Pringle. "Get out
of this, or it will be worse for you! I'll have no thieving quacks
here."
"Who is this man?" asked the doctor.
"My father."
"Then the sooner you have him removed the better. He must be either
drunk or mad."
Jessie took her father by the shoulders and pressed him down by main
force on to the sofa.
"Speak another word at your peril," she said sternly. "Disturb this
gentleman again, and as sure as I am what I am, I'll have you locked
up in there--in there, do you understand?" and she pointed in the
direction of the strong-room.
There was something in his daughter's face that cowed him--that
frightened him even. He had never seen such an expression on any other
face. He sat down without a word.
The doctor was down on one knee by this time, examining the
unconscious man.
"How did he come by this terrible wound on his head?" he asked
presently; "and why has he been allowed to sink so low? Some one ought
to have been called in two days ago."
"It's only about two days since he got home," said the woman, "and he
brought the wound with him. How he came by it nobody knows but
himself. Then, he was accidentally"--with a glance at Her father--"shut
up in the room where he keeps his books and things, and couldn't help
himself, and there I found him about two o'clock this morning."
"Was he conscious when you found him? Did he know you?"
"Yes."
"Why did you not send for medical assistance as soon as you found
him?"
"Because he wouldn't let me--he wouldn't hear of it."
"More fool he," said the doctor brusquely. "What did you give him to
eat or drink?"
"All that I could persuade him to take was a little brandy and water."
"Well, I can do nothing for him till he wakes," said the doctor as he
rose to his feet. "I may tell you that he appears, so far as I can
judge at present, to be in about as bad a way as it is possible for a
man to be. I don't think it advisable to disturb him, and this sleep
may do him good. I will call again about ten o'clock. Should he awake
before then send me word, and till I arrive keep on giving him a
teaspoonful of brandy every few minutes." With that the doctor went.
Jessie was kneeling by Van Duren's head, and she never moved to let
the doctor out. Pringle, with his red, watery eyes, and doubled-up
back, still sat on the sofa, his elbows resting on his knees, and his
chin in the palms of his hands, looking like a ghoul waiting for its
prey. Suddenly his daughter turned her head, and their eyes met.
"Look on your work and be satisfied," she said.
"I am looking, and I am satisfied," was the grim reply.
"And now," said the woman, speaking quietly, but with the same look on
her face that had already cowed him, "you had better leave me, or
there'll be harm done. I know there will. If you hadn't been my father
I should have stabbed you to the heart before now for what you have
done here"--pointing to the dying man. "Go! go! or worse will come of
it."
Pringle cowered before her, and muttering something to the effect that
a good wash would freshen him up, he slunk out of the room and
shuffled upstairs, coughing painfully as he went.
Jessie resumed her watch by the unconscious man, bathing his brows now
and again with a little vinegar. Presently he opened his eyes and
gazed up wonderingly into her face. Then he tried to raise himself on
his elbow, but fell back with a groan. Jessie gave him a little
brandy, and that seemed to revive him.
"Where am I; what has happened?" he murmured.
"Hush! don't talk now," said Jessie. "The doctor will be here in a
little while, and give you something to revive you."
"The doctor? The----Ah! everything comes back to me now. It was you
who opened my dungeon and helped me, bit by bit, to crawl here. What
good angel sent you to me, Jessie?"
Then, before she could answer, he began to mutter to himself in
German, a language which he very rarely spoke, and evidently knew her
no longer.
At this moment there came a sound of loud knocking at the front door.
At the noise Van Duren again turned his eyes on Jessie.
He looked at her as he had never looked at her before: with a pathos
and tenderness indescribable. But he did not speak.
Jessie's quick ears had heard her father open the door in answer to
the knocking, and now there was a sound of footsteps coming down the
stone stairs that led to the kitchen. Next minute the door was pushed
open, and three men came into the room. One of them was Peter Byrne,
and the other two were members of the police force in plain clothes.
Byrne was startled at the sight before him, but he did not lose his
presence of mind.
"There, gentlemen, is the man you are in search of. This is Max Van
Duren, formerly known by the name of Max Jacoby."
One of the officers advanced. "Max Jacoby, you are charged with being
the murderer of one Paul Stilling, at Tewkesbury, many years ago, and
I hold a warrant for your arrest."
"A warrant for my arrest!" echoed Van Duren feebly. "You have come too
late, gentlemen--too late, I say! I am beyond your reach now. I am
going where you dare not follow me!"
His eyes closed once more; he breathed three or four times, and then
not again.