THE SOLICITOR'S CLERK
Hugh Morice was the first to leave the four crossroads; Miss Arnott
stood some time after he had gone, thinking. Life had had for her some
queer phases--none queerer than that which confronted her, as she stood
thinking by the stile.
That Hugh Morice should have done the thing she knew he had done, was
bad enough. That he should have denied it to her face in such explicit
terms and coupled with his denial such a monstrous accusation, was
inconceivable. He had not gone very far before she told herself that,
after all, she had misunderstood him, she must have done. For some
minutes she was half disposed to jump into her car, follow him and
insist on a clearer explanation. He could not have meant what he had
appeared to do, not seriously and in earnest.
But she refrained from putting her idea into execution as she recalled
the almost savage fashion in which he had hurled opprobrium at her. He
had meant it; he must have meant it, or he would not have spoken to her
in such a strain. At the thought she shivered.
Because, if this were the case, if she really had to regard his words
as seriously intended, then she would have to rearrange her whole
outlook on to life, particularly that portion of it which was pressing
so hardly on her now. In her blackest moments she had not credited Hugh
Morice with being a scoundrel. He had been guilty of a crime, but she
could have forgiven him for that. By what he had done he had separated
himself from her for ever and for ever. Still, she could have looked at
him across the dividing chasm with something tenderer than pity.
This new attitude he had taken up altered the position altogether. If
it meant anything it meant that he had killed Robert Champion for some
recondite reason of his own--one with which she had no sort of
connection. Obviously, if he had done it for her sake, he would not be
so strenuous in denial; still less would he charge her with his crime.
Thus the whole business assumed a different complexion. The inference
seemed to be that Hugh Morice and Robert Champion had not been
strangers to each other. There had been that between them which induced
the one to make away with the other when opportunity offered. The whole
thing had been the action of a coward. In imagination the girl could
see it all. Hugh Morice coming suddenly on the man he least
expected--or desired--to meet; the great rush of his astonishment; the
instant consciousness that his enemy was helpless; the sight of the
knife; the irresistible, wild temptation; the yielding to it; the
immediate after-pangs of conscience-stricken terror; the frantic flight
through the moon-lit forest from the place of the shedding of blood.
And this was the man whom, almost without herself being aware of it,
she had been making a hero of. This sordid wretch, who, not content
with having slain a helpless man for some, probably wholly unworthy,
purpose of his own, in his hideous anxiety to save his own miserable
skin was willing, nay, eager, to sacrifice her. Possibly his desire to
do so was all the greater because he was haunted by the voice of
conscience crying out to him that this girl would not only be a
continual danger, but that he would never be able to come into her
presence without being racked by the knowledge that she knew him--no
matter how gallantly he bore himself--to be the thing he really was.
So it was plain to her that here was a new danger sprung up all at once
out of the ground, threatening more serious ills than any she had
known. If Jim Baker was found guilty of this man's crime, and she moved
a finger to save him from his unmerited fate, then it might be that she
would find herself in imminent peril of the gallows. For it needed but
momentary consideration to enable her to perceive that what he had
suggested was true enough, that if they began to accuse each other it
would be easier, if he were set on playing the perjurer, to prove her
guilt than his. And so quite possibly it might come about that, in
order to save Jim Baker, it would be necessary she should hang. And
life was yet young in her veins, and, though she had in it such sorry
usage, still the world was very fair, and, consciously, in all her life
she had never done an evil thing.
And then it was not strange that, there in the sunshine by the
roadside, at the bare thought that it was even remotely possible that
such a fate might be in store for her, she sat down on the stile,
clinging to the rail, trembling from head to foot.
She would have sat there longer had she not been roused by a familiar,
unescapable sound--the panting of a motor. Along the road was
approaching a motor bicyclist. At sight of her, and of the waiting car,
he stopped, raising his cap.
"I beg your pardon, but is there anything wrong with the car?"
She stood up, still feeling that, at anyrate, there was something wrong
with the world, or with her.
"No, thank you, the car's all right; I was only resting."
"I beg your pardon once more, but aren't you Miss Arnott of Exham
Park?"
She looked at the speaker, which hitherto she had avoided doing. He was
a young man of four or five and twenty, with a not unpleasing
countenance; so far as she knew, a stranger to her.
"I am, but I don't know you."
"That is very possible--I am a person of no importance. My name is
Adams--Charles Adams. I am clerk to Mr Parsloe, solicitor, of
Winchester. We had a communication from a man who is in Winchester
Gaol, waiting his trial for murder, a man named Baker. Possibly you
have heard of him."
"Oh yes, I have heard of Jim Baker; he is a gamekeeper on my own
estate."
"So he gave me to understand. Mr Parsloe sent me to see him. I did see
him, in private. He gave me a note, which he was extremely anxious that
I should give into your own hands. I was just coming on to Exham Park
on the off-chance of finding you in. Perhaps you won't mind my giving
it to you now?"
"By all means. Why not?"
He had taken out of a leather case a piece of folded paper.
"You see it is rather a rough-and-ready affair, but I should like to
give you my assurance that I have no idea what it contains."
"I don't suppose it would matter much if you did. Jim Baker is hardly
likely to have a communication of a private nature to make to me."
"As to that I know nothing. I can only say that Baker was not satisfied
till I had sworn that I would not attempt to even so much as peep at
the contents of his note, or let it go out of my hands until it reached
yours."
"Really?"
"Really! I never saw a man more desperately in earnest on a point of
the kind."
"Jim Baker is a character."
"He certainly is. You will see that the note is written on a piece of
rough paper. Where he got it from I don't know, and was careful not to
ask; but it looks suspiciously like a fly-leaf which had been torn out
of a book. You are possibly aware that in prison, in the ordinary way,
they are allowed neither paper, pen nor ink. I fancy you'll find that
this is written with a pencil. When I first saw it it had been simply
folded, and one end slipped into the other. I happened to have some
sealing-wax in my pocket. Baker insisted on my sealing it, in his
presence, in three places, as you perceive, so that it was impossible
to get at the contents without breaking the seals. I say all this
because Baker himself was emphatically of opinion that this note
contained matter of an extremely confidential nature, to which I should
like you clearly to understand that I have had no sort of access. I may
add another fact, of which you are also possibly aware, and that is
that the whole transaction was irregular. He had no right to give me
the note, and I had no right to convey it out of the prison; but he did
the one, and I did the other, and here it is."
Mr Adams handed the lady the scrap of paper, she asking him a question
as he did so,--
"To whom did you say that you were clerk?"
"To Mr Parsloe, a well-known and highly-esteemed Winchester solicitor."
"Why did Baker, as you put it, communicate with Mr Parsloe?"
"He wanted us to undertake his defence."
"And are you going to do so?"
Mr Adams smiled.
"As matters are, I am afraid not. Baker appears to be penniless, he is
not even able to keep himself while awaiting trial, but is on the
ordinary prison fare. It is necessary that a client should not only
have his solicitor's sympathy, but also the wherewithal with which to
pay his fees."
"Then it is only a question of money. I see. At what address shall I
find Mr Parsloe if I wish to do so?"
The gentleman gave the lady a card.
"That is Mr Parsloe's address. You will find my name in the corner as
representing him. I may mention that I also am an admitted solicitor."
"It is possible that you will hear from me. In the meantime, thank you
very much for taking so much trouble in bringing me this note. Any
expenses which may have been incurred I shall be happy to defray."
"At present no expenses have been incurred. I need hardly say that any
instructions with which you may honour us will receive our instant and
most careful attention."
Again Mr Adams's cap came off. He turned his bicycle round, and
presently was speeding back the way he had come. Miss Arnott stood
looking after him, the "note" in her hand.
Jim Baker's "note," as the solicitor's clerk had more than hinted, was
distinctly unusual as to form. It was represented by an oblong scrap of
paper, perhaps two inches long by an inch broad. Nothing was written on
the outside; on the exterior there was nothing whatever to show for
what destination it was designed. As Mr Adams had said, where one end
had been slipped into the other three seals had been affixed. On each
seal was a distinct impression of what probably purported to be Mr
Adams's own crest; with, under the circumstances, a sufficiently
apposite motto--for once in a way in plain English--"Fear Nothing."