AN OPPORTUNE ARRIVAL
With his feet to the sea, and his head pillowed by many cushions, Rowan
lay in a long invalid chair at the edge of the little strip of shingle
which separated the tower of Rakney from the sea. Every limb was at
rest, every nerve seemed lulled into quiescence. The sun and wind had
left their traces upon his hollow cheeks. It seemed, indeed, as though
Death had lifted her hand from his forehead. It was only when one looked
closer that one realized his terrible weakness, realized how slender,
indeed, the thread was by which he held on to life. There was scarcely a
breath of wind stirring. The sun was high in the heavens, and the whole
country seemed lulled into a state of almost unnatural repose. The
distant trees were motionless, as though, indeed, they were simply
painted things against that background of deep blue sky. The smoke from
the little cluster of cottages crept upwards, straight as a ruled line.
The cattle in the fields seemed all asleep, exhausted by the unexpected
heat. The sea was like a lake, unruffled, almost unrippled.
The man dozed, and Winifred sat by his side, with her eyes fixed
steadily and yet absently upon the distant horizon. A week, at most, the
doctor had given him, and after that--what? She looked backwards to the
window,--the window through which she had entered on that wild night
earlier in the year. She looked away again uneasily. She was afraid of
such moments as these. It was to escape from them that she had protested
so vehemently against their accepting Deane's offer of his cottage.
At low tide, a rough, pebbly road led from the village to the cottage,
as well as the dyke footpath higher up. Along this came two people, a
man and a woman, mere specks at first in the distance, but rapidly
becoming more and more evident. They walked fast, and they looked always
anxiously toward the tower, which stood out at the end of the road
against the background of the sky,--a curious, almost uncanny, sort of
building.
"If they see us coming," said Ruby Sinclair, "they will certainly try to
prevent our seeing him. Our only chance is to come upon them
unexpectedly. They can watch the dyke path from the front, but few
people ever come by this road. It winds about so, and it is generally
thick with sea mud."
The man nodded. He too was keeping his gaze fixed in a strained manner
upon their goal. "Now that we are so near," he said, "so near to him, we
will make him speak. We will not be driven away. He cannot escape from
us there."
There was a curious air of determination about these two, a certain
grimness which seemed common to both of them, as they hurried along the
rough, stone-strewn road. They had reached the last hundred yards now,
and their course was perfectly straight. They walked single file along
the little stretch of marshland which served as a footpath.
"He is in front, lying on a chair," she whispered. "They won't be able
to get him in now before we are there."
The road terminated suddenly upon the beach. The man and the girl
scrambled up a little shingly mound. When at last Winifred heard the
sounds of their approach, they were already between her and the house.
Any attempt at escape was useless. She came a few steps toward them.
"Who are you, please, and what do you want?" she asked quickly.
Hefferom stretched out a hand toward the prone figure of Rowan, who was
lying there still with closed eyes. "We want a few words with your
brother," he said. "We shall not keep him long, but it is very
important. We have come a long way to see him."
"It is impossible," she said firmly. "He is very ill indeed. The doctor
allows him to see no one. I don't know how you found your way here, but
you must please return at once."
"I have come a long way," Hefferom said slowly.
"I am sorry," she answered, "but can't you see that it makes no
difference? If you were to ask him questions, he is not well enough to
answer you--scarcely to understand. Any sudden shock at all--even a
recognition--might kill him."
Hefferom hesitated no longer. He pushed Winifred away, and motioned to
Ruby to follow him. At that moment Rowan opened his eyes and turned his
head. Hefferom walked towards him and leaned over his chair.
"You remember me, Rowan?" he said. "My name is Hefferom, Steve Hefferom.
We were up the Newey Valley together, camped out, you know, at Prince's
Gorge, for more than a month,--you and I and Deane, and a lot of us."
"I remember," Rowan faltered, trying to raise himself. "Yes, I
remember!"
He had a fit of coughing. Winifred passed her arms around him and held
him up. "If you stay," she whispered to Hefferom, "you will kill him. He
ought not to speak ever a sentence."
"It isn't much we want him to say, miss," Hefferom answered doggedly,
"but there's a question he's got to answer. If he is as near death as
you say, it can't make much difference what happens, and it means more
than death to me and to this young lady."
Rowan had recovered sufficiently to drink from a glass which Winifred
had handed to him. He turned once more toward Hefferom. "That is all
finished," he said painfully,--"those days. I am ill,--too ill to talk,
too ill to think, too ill to live! Please go."
Hefferom bent over him. "Rowan," he said, "you and I were never enemies,
even if we didn't exactly hit it off together. Listen to me for a
moment. Sinclair borrowed my last three hundred pounds in Cape Town to
come over here and lay claim to the Little Anna Gold-Mine. He had the
government deed with him. I have seen it. I followed him over to claim
my share, and I found him dead, killed, and the paper gone. I am not
asking you to give away your game, whatever it was, but we want the
paper. This is Sinclair's niece with me, and I am his partner. We
inherit his claim to the Little Anna Gold-Mine, and we want that
document."
"The document was not amongst Sinclair's effects when they were examined
after his death," Rowan said. "I did not take it. I do not know what has
become of it. That is the truth. Leave me alone now. I cannot talk any
more."
His head dropped back upon his pillow. He was white to the lips.
Winifred hurried to his side. Once more she turned upon the two.
"Are you satisfied?" she cried. "You have nearly killed him--for
nothing. I know very well that no document of any sort such as you
describe has been found. If Mr. Sinclair ever had it, it was probably
stolen from him."
"Stolen, yes!" Hefferom said,--"stolen right enough! That is what we are
here about. This young lady is his niece, and I'm his partner. What was
left behind belongs to us, and, so far as I know, the only thing worth
having was that document. We want it, and, by God," he wound up, "we've
got to have it!"
"Do you imagine," the girl asked, without change of countenance, "that
you will find it here?"
"I will tell you what I do imagine," Hefferom answered. "Men don't
commit murder for nothing. Your brother tried to steal that paper, or
rather he did steal it. The game's up now. He's no opportunity to make
use of it, and it belongs to us. It belongs to us and we've come for it.
There, now you know the truth. We've come for it, and we've come to stop
until we get it."
Rowan raised himself a little in his seat. "Hefferom," he said, "it's no
use talking like that. I haven't got it. I'll be frank, frank as you
have been. I know no more than you do who has got it. I quarrelled with
Sinclair, and he got suspicious. We fought in his room, and the result
you know, but I was arrested before I left the hotel. Everyone knows
that. The paper--I never had it--I never even saw it. Where it is now
God only knows. I don't."
Rowan fell back in his chair, coughing violently. For several moments he
was incapable of speech. Winifred knelt by his side. When he had
finished coughing, she held a wineglass to his lips and made him sip its
contents. He lay back now as though completely exhausted. She turned to
face these unwelcome visitors.
"You see," she cried, pointing to him, "a little more of this and you
will kill him. Go away, both of you. He has nothing to tell you."
Hefferom laughed a little brutally. "Come," he said, "this game won't
do. We are here for the truth, not to be put off with these fairy-tales.
It is the truth we want, and the truth we'll have, or I'll wring it out
of him even if it kills him."
Rowan's eyes were closed, and he showed no sign of having heard.
Winifred stood up boldly before him. "You are fools!" she said. "He has
told you all he knows. If Sinclair ever had the deed you speak of, he
parted with it to someone else, not to my brother."
"Someone else!" Hefferom repeated. "Do you take us for fools? If he
parted with that deed, he parted with it for a fortune. Where's the
money? Show us the deed or the money, and we are satisfied. Show us
neither, and we'll not leave this place until he has spoken."
A step upon the shingle behind suddenly diverted their attention. The
eyes of every one of them were fixed upon the tall figure who was
walking swiftly up the slope. They had been so engrossed that they had
not even heard the sound of the motor-car which was standing there,
splashed with mud, and with its engine still panting. With his glasses
in his hand, and his long gray coat thrown open, Stirling Deane strode
up to them.
"Come," he said, "it seems to me that I have arrived opportunely. What
does this mean? Who are these people? Miss Sinclair, is this man your
companion? What does he mean by speaking in such a tone to a dying man?"
No one answered him. Hefferom stood as though turned to stone, but his
eyes never left Deane's.