"He has that dog of Brazer's as a blind. A blind, and nothing else,
sir. He has captured our dog, safe and sure, and is keeping him hid up
somewhere till the first storm of the search is over, when he'll be able
to dispose of him safely."
I could not see Giles's drift, or how the one dog could help to conceal
the possession of the other.
"Well, sir, I can't explain it better," he answered; "I can't fit
the pieces of the puzzle into one another in my mind _yet_. But I am
positive it is so. Dick Standish has made up the farce about Brazer's
dog and got him into his hands to throw dust in our eyes and keep us off
the scent of Don."
I began to see the groom might be right; and that the Standishes, sly
and crafty, were keeping Don in hiding.
Mrs. Todhetley had met us with a face of concern. Lena's throat was
becoming very bad indeed, and Mr. Duffham did not like the look of it at
all. He had already come twice that day.
"I think, Johnny," said the mother to me, "that we had better stop Miss
Barbary's coming to-morrow; Mr. Duffham does not know but the malady may
be getting infectious. Suppose you go now to the cottage and tell her."
So I went off to do so, and found her ill. On this same Friday
afternoon, having occasion to ask some question of her father, who was
in the garden, she found him planting greens on the plot of ground--the
_grave_--under the summer-apple tree. Before she could speak, a shudder
of terror seized her; she trembled from head to foot, turned back to the
kitchen, and sat down on the nearest chair.
Old Joan pronounced it to be an attack of ague; Miss Katrine, she said,
must have taken a chill. Perhaps she had. It was just then that I
arrived and found her shivering in the kitchen. Joan ran up to her room
in the garret to bring down some powder she kept there, said to be a
grand remedy for ague.
It was getting dusk then; the sun had set. To me, Katrine seemed to
be shaking with terror, not illness. Mr. Barbary, in full view of the
window, was planting the winter greens under the summer-apple tree.
"What is it that you are frightened at?" I said, propping my back
against the kitchen mantelpiece.
"I _must_ ask you a question, Johnny Ludlow," she whispered, panting and
shivering. "Was it you who came and stood inside the gate there in the
middle of last night?"
"Yes it was. And I saw what Mr. Barbary was doing--_there_. I could not
make it out."
Katrine left her chair and placed herself before me. Clasping her
piteous hands, she besought me to be silent; to keep the secret for pity
sake--to be _true_. All kinds of odd ideas stole across me. I would not
listen to them; only promised her that I would tell nothing, would be
true for ever and a day.
"It must have been an accident, you know," she pleaded; "it must have
been an accident."
Joan came back, and I took my departure. What on earth could Katrine
have meant? All kinds of fancies were troubling my brain, fit only for
what in these later days are called the penny dreadfuls, and I did my
best to drive them out of it.
The next morning Katrine was really ill. Her throat was parched, her
body ached with fever. As to Lena, she was worse; and we, who ought to
have gone back to school that day, were kept at home lest we should
carry with us any infection.
"All right," said Tod. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." He did
not believe in the infection; told me in private that Duffham was an old
woman.
Can any one picture, I wonder, Katrine Barbary's distress of mind,
the terrible dread that had taken possession of it? Shuddering dread,
amounting to a panic: dread of the deed itself, dread for her father,
dread of discovery.
On the following morning, Sunday, a letter was delivered at Caramel
Cottage for Mr. Reste, the postmark being London, the writing in the
same hand as the last--Captain Amphlett's. Mr. Barbary took it away to
his gun-room; Katrine saw it, later in the day, lying on the deal-table
there, unopened.
The next Thursday afternoon, Lena being then almost well--for children
are dying to-day and running about again to-morrow--I called at the
Cottage to ask after Katrine. We heard she had an attack of fever. The
weather was lovely again; the October sky blue as in summer, the sun hot
and bright.
Well, she did look ill! She sat in the parlour at the open window, a
huge shawl on, and her poor face about half the size it was before. What
had it been, I asked, and she said ague; but she was much better now and
intended to be at the Manor again on Monday.
"Sit down please, Johnny. I suppose Lena has been glad of the holiday?"
"She just has. That young lady believes French was invented for her
especial torment. Have you heard from Mr. Reste, Katrine?----What does
he say about his impromptu flitting?"
She turned white as a ghost, never answering, looking at me strangely.
I thought a spasm might have seized her.
"Not yet," she faintly said. "Papa thinks--thinks he may have gone
abroad."
While I was digesting the words, some vehicle was heard rattling up the
side lane; it turned the corner and stopped at the gate. "Why, Katrine,"
I said, "it is a railway fly from Evesham!"
A little fair man in a grey travelling-suit got out of the fly, came up
the path, and knocked at the door. Old Joan answered it and showed him
into the room. "Captain Amphlett," she said. Katrine looked ready to
die.
"I must apologize for intruding," he began, with a pleasant voice and
manner. "My friend Edgar Reste is staying here, I believe."
Katrine was taken with a shivering fit. The stranger looked at her with
curiosity. I said she had been ill with ague, and was about to add that
Edgar Reste had left, when Mr. Barbary came in. Captain Amphlett turned
to him and went on to explain: he was on his way to spend a little time
in one of the Midland shires, and had halted at Evesham for the purpose
of looking up Edgar Reste--from whom he had been expecting to hear more
than a week past; could not understand why he did not. Mr. Barbary, with
all the courtesy of the finished gentleman, told him, in reply to this,
that Edgar Reste had left Caramel Cottage a week ago.
"Dear me!" cried the stranger, evidently surprised. "And without writing
to tell me. Was his departure unexpected?"
Mr. Barbary laughed lightly. That man would have retained his calmest
presence of mind when going down in a wreck at sea. "Some matter of
business called him away, I fancy," he replied.
"And to what part of England was he going?" asked Captain Amphlett,
after a pause. "Did he say?"
Mr. Barbary appeared to have an impulsive answer on his lips, but closed
them before he could speak it. He glanced at me, and then turned his
head and glanced at Katrine, as if to see whether she was there, for he
was sitting with his back to her. A thought struck me that we were in
the way of his plain speaking.
"He went to London," said Mr. Barbary.
"To London!" echoed the Captain. "Why, that's strange. He has not come
to London, I assure you."
"I can assure you it is where he told me he was going," said Mr.
Barbary, smiling. "And it was to London his luggage was addressed."
"Well, it is altogether strange," repeated Captain Amphlett. "I went to
his chambers in the Temple yesterday, and Farnham, the barrister who
shares them with him, told me Reste was still in Worcestershire; he had
not heard from him for some time, and supposed he might be returning any
day now. Where in the world can he be hiding himself? Had he come to
London, as you suppose, Mr. Barbary, he would have sought me out the
first thing."
Whiter than any ghost ever seen or heard of, had grown Katrine as she
listened. I could not take my eyes from her terrified face.
"I do not comprehend it," resumed Captain Amphlett, looking more
helpless than a rudderless ship at sea. "Are you sure, sir, that there
is no mistake; that he was really going to London?"
"Not at all sure; only that he said it," returned Mr. Barbary in a half
mocking tone. "One does not inquire too closely, you know, into the
private affairs of young men. We have not heard from him yet."
"I cannot understand it at all," persisted Captain Amphlett; "or why he
has not written to me; or where he can have got to. He ought to have
written."
"Ah, yes, no doubt," suavely remarked Mr. Barbary. "He was careless
about letter-writing, I fancy. Can I offer you any refreshment?"
"None at all, thank you; I have no time to spare," said the other,
rising to depart. "I suppose you do not chance to know whether Reste had
a letter from me last Tuesday week?"
"Yes, he had one. It had some bank-notes in it. He opened it here at the
breakfast table."
Quite a relief passed over Captain Amphlett's perplexed face at the
answer. "I am glad to hear you say that, Mr. Barbary. By his not
acknowledging receipt of the money, I feared it had miscarried."
Bidding us good afternoon, and telling Katrine (at whose sick state
he had continued to glance curiously) that he wished her better, the
stranger walked rapidly out to his fly, attended by Mr. Barbary.
"Katrine," I asked, preparing to take my own departure, "what was there
in Captain Amphlett to frighten you?"
"It--it was the ague," she answered, bringing out the words with a jerk.
"Oh--ague! Well, I'd get rid of such an ague as that. Good-bye."
But it was not ague; it was sheer fear, as common sense told me, and I
did not care to speculate upon it. An uneasy atmosphere seemed to be
hanging over Caramel Cottage altogether; to have set in with Edgar
Reste's departure.
A day or two later our people departed for Crabb Cot for change of air
for Lena, and we returned to school, so that nothing more was seen or
heard at present of the Barbarys.