THE EVIDENCE OF THE MINIATURE.
After his secret visit to the vaults below the northern wing, a
perpetual fever of mind possessed Lionel Westford. He shrank from
every chance of meeting with Julia Godwin. He brooded continually
upon the circumstantial evidence of the blood-stained shred of cloth,
the black pool of blood, the leather glove, which he had found in the
cellar.
A man had come to Wilmingdon one evening in the June of the past
year, and had never been seen to go away.
The ravings of the old gardener were not the result of a disordered
mind; they were the offspring of an intellect which even in its decay
retained the memory of a dreadful scene.
Lionel Westford’s mind was tortured by conflicting feelings. He knew
that, having fallen upon the clue to a crime that had escaped the eye
of justice, it was his sacred duty to place that clue in the hands
of the police, in order that the secret of Wilmingdon Hall might be
dragged to light, and that justice might overtake the criminal.
But that criminal was Julia Godwin’s father. The image of the woman
he loved, pale, agonized, grief-stricken, rose before him; and he
felt that he _could not_ be the means of bringing her father to the
gallows.
Then he tried to believe that no murder had been committed on that
June evening. He tried to think that Rupert Godwin was not guilty
of the worst crime which man can commit. It was all one great
mystification, probably the result of a sequence of accidents. The
blood-stained fragment of a coat, the glove, the ravings of Caleb
Wildred might all be explained perhaps in quite a different manner
from that in which Lionel had been inclined to read them.
“Why should Rupert Godwin murder this stranger?” thought the young
man. “What motive could he have had? Pshaw! I have been a madman
to suspect him of such a deed--as mad and foolish as that poor
half-witted gardener, whose ravings, after all, may be utterly
meaningless.”
It was thus that Lionel Westford reasoned with himself,--so anxious
was he to believe in the innocence of his mother’s enemy. But, argue
with himself as he would, the dark and terrible truth was perpetually
thrusting its hideous image before his eyes.
It was quite in vain that he tried to think lightly of the mystery. A
dreadful weight oppressed his mind. He remembered the strange feeling
which had come over him on the day when he for the first time entered
Wilmingdon Hall.
“It is useless to struggle against the truth!” he exclaimed one day,
after a long period of mental conflict. “The shadow of crime darkens
this place. The foul taint of blood poisons the very atmosphere.
Murder has been done here; and, come what may, I must do my
duty--yes, even at the cost of Julia Godwin’s peace.”
The long struggle had come to an end at last. Lionel Westford
resolved to lose no more time, but to leave Wilmingdon Hall that
very day, and seek an interview with one of the chief members of the
detective police immediately he reached London.
Under these circumstances he sat down to write to Julia Godwin, his
employer, his patroness.
He had only occasion to tell her that particular business obliged him
to go to London, and that he was therefore compelled to relinquish
his employment without a more formal notice.
He had only to tell her this, and to thank her for her goodness--to
express his appreciation of the benevolent feelings that had prompted
her to employ him.
But, simple though the matter of the letter was, he found it very
difficult to write. He knew that the task he was about to undertake
was one which might bring despair and anguish upon the woman whose
generosity had rescued him from starvation--the woman whom he fondly
loved.
His letter was very cold, very formal. He dared not trust himself to
reveal one spark of real feeling.
He sealed and directed it. He then set in order the drawings upon
which he had been employed; and next hastily gathered together his
few possessions.
These he packed in his portmanteau; but he resolved on leaving the
portmanteau behind him until he should be able to send for it. He
wanted to quit the house unnoticed; he wished his departure to be
undiscovered till he was far from Wilmingdon Hall. He wished, above
all things, to escape the chance of meeting with Julia Godwin. Such a
meeting would have been fatal; for the young man felt that he should
have failed in the endeavour to conceal his feelings.
He descended the stairs, crossed the hall, and went out upon the
lawn. The drawing-room windows were open, and he could hear Julia
Godwin singing. The song was very familiar to him, for he had often
sat in the summer twilight listening dreamily to the melody. The rich
tones of the singer went to his heart. He was leaving her--perhaps
forever. Or if they ever met again, would she not look upon him as
her worst and bitterest foe?
He could not quit the Hall without stealing one last glance at the
face which had bewitched him.
The long French windows were open to their utmost extent. Lionel
stole softly across the pathway, and stood for some moments gazing
silently at the face of the singer.
Julia Godwin was very pensive. There was a look of profound thought,
or it might be of profound sadness, in her large dark eyes. The tones
of her voice were tremulous, and her hands moved slowly over the keys
of the piano.
For but a few moments Lionel Westford lingered. He dared not trust
himself to stay longer, lest Julia should glance upward, and see
him standing by the open window. There was nothing he more dreaded
than an interview with Rupert Godwin’s daughter, and yet it was very
difficult to turn away from that window.
He did turn, however, and stole off unnoticed. He made his way across
the park, and walked to Hertford--no public vehicle plying on the
country road.
He was going straight to the railway station, when he suddenly
remembered that there might possibly be a letter from his mother or
sister waiting for him at the post-office.
He accordingly turned back, and went to the office. There was a
letter--a letter addressed to him in his mother’s handwriting; but
the writing seemed strangely tremulous.
“O Heaven!” he thought; “I hope my mother is not ill.”
He tore open the envelope hastily, and read the letter as he walked
towards the railway station. It was the letter which Clara Westford
had written after her interview with Gilbert Thornleigh.
No words can tell the horror of the young man as he read that
communication.
His father, his beloved father, had been known to start for
Wilmingdon Hall on a night in the June of the previous year, and
had never been seen since. Twenty thousand pounds had been paid
into the hands of Rupert Godwin--of that very Rupert Godwin who had
represented Harley Westford as deeply indebted to him, and who had
driven the Captain’s wife and children away from the home that had so
long been their own.
The people walking that day in the High-street of Hertford must have
been startled by the white face of Lionel Westford as he sauntered
along, brooding on the contents of his mother’s letter. Could it be
that his father had fallen a victim to the murderous hand of Rupert
Godwin? Could it have been the blood of his own father which he had
traced down the cellar-steps below the northern wing?
By what means was he to fathom the truth?
Should he go on to London, and place the whole case in the hands of
the police? Or should he return to Wilmingdon Hall, and endeavour
himself to discover whether the visitor whom Rupert Godwin had taken
into the northern wing was indeed Harley Westford?
He decided on returning to the Hall. He fancied that he had hit upon
a plan by which he might at least settle the question of his father’s
identity with the stranger who had been seen by the housekeeper to
enter the northern wing in company with Rupert Godwin.
The sun was setting behind the noble elms and beeches of Wilmingdon
Park when Lionel Westford once more walked along the avenue leading
to the Hall.
Half-way between the lodge-gates and the house he turned aside into
the winding path which he had been directed to take on his first
coming to Wilmingdon.
As he proceeded slowly along this shadowy pathway he took a small
object from his waistcoat-pocket and looked at it intently. It was a
gold locket, attached to a chain of soft golden-brown hair. That soft
brown hair had been cut from Clara Westford’s head. The chain had
been a birthday gift from the mother to her son. The locket contained
a carefully painted and faithful likeness of Harley Westford,
taken shortly before that luckless midsummer which had been the
commencement of so many sorrows.
Lionel had a purpose in choosing this shadowy path through the thick
shrubbery. He was going to the fernery, the spot where he had first
seen Caleb Wildred.
He knew that the fernery was a favourite retreat with old Caleb, and
that the half-witted gardener would often spend whole days there,
brooding over his dark fancies, mumbling and muttering to himself.
Lionel was not disappointed. Caleb was there this evening, sitting on
a fragment of the rockwork, his elbows on his knees, his chin in the
palms of his hands, in the attitude of a person who is thinking very
deeply.
He started as Lionel’s footfall sounded on some newly-fallen leaves,
the first of the fading summer. A moment afterwards he looked up with
a half-imbecile smile.
“Ah!” he muttered, “a stranger--a stranger! a young man who talks
to old Caleb sometimes. I’m not afraid or you. No, no. You are kind
to me, and I’m not afraid of you. But you won’t try to find out the
secret, will you? You won’t ask me to betray my master? I’ve lived
in this place so long, so long--man and boy, man and boy; and you
can’t surely ask me to bring a Godwin to the gallows--not to the
gallows!--no, no. They used to hang ’em in chains when I was a boy;
and I’ve heard the dry bones rattle and the rusty irons creak on the
old coach-road between Hertford and London. You wouldn’t ask me to
hang one of the Godwin’s--one of the old stock!”
Lionel Westford seated himself upon the rockwork beside the old man.
He laid his hand gently on Caleb’s wrist, and tried to soothe him.
“Come, Mr. Wildred,” he said, “let us talk seriously. You have
allowed your mind to dwell too much upon this business. I want you
to help me; I want you to give me your aid in a very serious matter.
Look at this picture, and tell me if you ever saw the face before?”
Lionel Westford opened the locket which contained his father’s
miniature, and held the picture before the old man.
For a few moments Caleb Wildred stared at it with the blank gaze
of imbecility. Then a sudden change came over his face; his eyes
dilated, his lips trembled convulsively.
“Great God of Heaven!” he cried, “the secret--the secret! Where did
you get that picture?”
“Never mind that,” answered Lionel, who could scarcely control his
agitation; “look at the face, and tell me if you ever saw it before?”
“If I ever saw it before!” cried the old gardener, in a voice that
rose almost to a shriek of agony; “he asks me if I ever saw that face
before! Why, it haunts me by day and by night--it follows me wherever
I go! If I look into the deep dark water, I see it looking at me from
the bottom, calm and smiling, as it looked that night; if I shut
myself up in the darkness, I can see it still, with a light of its
own about it. Wherever I go, it follows me, and tortures me, because
I keep that wicked secret--that horrid secret of my master’s guilt.
Take the picture away, young man, unless you want to drive me raving
mad. It is the face of the man who was murdered in the northern wing!”
Lionel Westford uttered one long cry of despair, and fell to the
ground, with his father’s miniature still clasped in his hand.
When consciousness slowly returned, the young man found himself
alone, lying face downwards on the grass.
The sky was dark, save for the faint and silvery glimmer of distant
stars high in the vault of heaven. It was late, and the dew had
fallen. Lionel Westford felt a deadly chill creeping through his
bones.
There was a heavy feeling in his brain--a dull drowsiness which was
almost stupor; and yet the memory of what had happened still held its
place in his mind.
The image of his father, slain by Rupert Godwin’s murderous hand, was
vividly impressed upon his imagination; he saw it before him, almost
as palpable as the giant trunks of oaks and elms looming darkly
through the night.
He tried to rise, but found that his limbs were stiff and aching. It
was only with a powerful effort that at length he staggered to his
feet.
When he looked about him, the scene around seemed to swim before his
eyes, the ground to reel beneath his feet.
“O God!” he exclaimed, “am I going to be ill? Is my hand to be
rendered powerless at this moment, when I have such need to use it as
the avenger of my father’s death?”
Slowly, and with tottering footsteps, Lionel Westford made his way
across the lawn, and approached the Hall. He knew that the principal
doors leading into the great entrance-hall were never locked until
late at night. He would be able to open them, and enter the house
unnoticed.
He had changed his mind with regard to his plan of action. He wanted
to make the most of the strange chance which had placed him beneath
the banker’s roof--he wanted to obtain still further proof of Rupert
Godwin’s guilt.
An alarming sense of helplessness was upon him as he approached the
mansion--a feeling of stupor and dizziness, which increased with
every moment.
He opened the door, and entered the hall. None of the servants
happened to be about, and he was able to ascend the staircase and
reach his own apartments entirely unnoticed. There were no candles
burning on the table of the sitting-room, but in the semi-darkness of
the August night he could see that the letter he addressed to Julia
had been removed. There was no white spot upon the dark ground of the
table-cover.
With weary, heavy steps he tottered into the adjoining room, and
flung himself upon the bed. It seemed as if he could not have gone a
step farther, even though his life had been at stake. Many-coloured
lights flashed before his dazzled eyes, a singing noise sounded in
his ears, and little by little the image of his murdered father
faded and melted away as Lionel Westford lapsed into a state of
unconsciousness.