A RECOGNITION
After that first startled look, Herries sprang from the bed, anxious
only, for the moment, to avoid contact with that blood-stained razor.
But blood also smeared the right arm of his shirt, which he could
not part with, as he had no other to wear. His hands were clean, the
bed-quilt was smooth, and the door closed. He could not comprehend
how the razor and the blood-stains came to be there. Half dazed and
unable to grasp the meaning of these weird things, he flung open the
window. It looked down into a small, bleak garden, and into thick
white mists, behind which lay those weary marshes he had traversed on
the previous evening. The inn might have been in the Aristophanic
Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, for all the signs of earth-life that were visible
in those dismal fogs. Herries, craning his body half out of the
window, could hear men and women chattering in the street, and at
times the shrill babble of children. So far as he could see and hear,
nothing was wrong, yet he felt that something terrible had happened.
It was at this point that he retreated suddenly from the window, with
one awesome word beating insistently upon his confused brain.
"Murder!" he cried aloud in the empty room. "Murder!"
He sprang towards the door, clothed only in his shirt, and pulled it
open with a jerk. Half frenzied with fear and possessed by an agonized
feeling of terror, he shouted the word down the narrow staircase.
People below were talking quietly, and moving about on various tasks
intent, but at the sound of that choking cry, both movements and
voices resolved themselves into an uncanny pause.
Shortly, the terror-stricken creature clinging to the top railings
heard heavy footsteps ascending, and aware of his light attire, he
slipped back into his room and into bed. The footsteps came nearer and
a rough bearded face peered in at the door. It was that of the
landlord, of whom he had caught a mere glimpse on the previous night.
Mrs. Narby was well matched in her help-mate--outwardly at least--for
he was a bulky, stout animal, with a heavy fist and a violent temper,
when aroused. But for the most part he was too lethargic to become
enraged, unless some special event demanded the use of uncontrolled
passion. At the present moment, his mild face--in repose it was
strangely mild--exhibited only wonder.
"What are you howling about?" he asked gruffly, and staring with bent
brows at the white-faced man.
"Murder!" chattered Herries, shivering and sitting up in bed, chin on
knees, "at least----" he flung the razor towards the man.
Narby, by this time well within the room, deftly caught the article,
and examined it closely. "Blood!" said he under his breath; then
looked at Herries, still shivering as with ague. "But y' ain't dead,
cut yourself maybe, shaving?"
"I have not shaved for two days. I have no razor with me, that is not
mine. Who has been murdered?" so Herries babbled, confusedly.
"Why, no one," growled the landlord, bristling. "This is a decent inn,
this is. Do you think we take in folks to cut their throats. You've
had a nightmare and this razor of yours----"
"It is not mine," passionately interrupted the young man. "I found it
on the quilt when I woke at nine this morning."
"It's nearly ten by now."
"Then I mistook the time, having no watch. But the blood----"
"It is queer," admitted Narby, meditatively, "but there's no one dead,
so far as I know. Old Gowrie slept in the tap-room, and went off at
seven. My wife and Elspeth are alive and busy; Pope, too, ate a good
breakfast, and there's no sign of a corpse about me."
"What of the gentleman who came last night?"
"He went away at eight, as he arranged, without his breakfast. My wife
saw him pass through the tap-room in that fur-coat of his, and no
wonder on such a chilly morning. He never passed the time of
day--gentry manners in this country, I 'spose."
"Then there's nothing wrong!" cried Herries, more bewildered than ever.
"Not that I know of. Someone's been having a joke with you, though
who'd play a low-down trick like this is more nor I can tell."
Narby looked at Herries, and Herries stared back at Narby, both
puzzled, and both bad-tempered. Whosoever had played this poor joke,
if joke it was, the landlord at least was innocent of the jest. The
young man shook his head to clear it of cobwebs and signed to the
other to leave the room, intending to get up and dress. The voice of
Mrs. Narby in the passage chained him to the bed.
"Wot's he 'ollerin' abaout?" she asked in her vile dialect.
"Had the nightmare," grumbled her spouse, pushing her back as she
tried to peep in.
"Ho! Then he'd best cut. D'y 'ear,--you," she shouted. "We don't want
no crazy coves 'ere. Elspeth, go an' mek the front room bed. The gent
hev gorn, an' th' room mus' be streight in a jiffy."
There was an inaudible reply, as Elspeth's light feet tripped past the
noisy landlady. Shortly Herries heard her speak, for his bedroom door
was still ajar, and the worthy couple were discussing his strange cry,
angrily.
"The door is locked," said Elspeth.
"Nonsense," cried Mrs. Narby, going to the girl. "Wot shud he lock it
fur, I'd like to knaow, an' 'im gittin' orf th' fust thing in th'
mornin'? Ho," Herries heard her shake the door violently, "locked it
is. Blimme, if he ain't gorn with th' key, 'aving locked the bloomin'
door. I'll have th' lawr of him. Elspeth, git outside, an' up t' th'
front winder. Them trellises mek quite a ledder."
"I'll do it," said Narby, quickly.
"You're too 'eavy. Ony a light shrimp like Elspeth cud git h'up. I
don' want my trellises mussed up. Elspeth!"
"I'm afraid." Herries heard the girl say timidly.
"Y' ain't! Wot cause 'ave y' t' be afraid, y' mealy-mouthed, little,
silly slut. Up y' go, or----" evidently a fist was raised at this
point.
"She shan't," growled Narby, who seemed to have more decent feeling
than his wife. "Here, stand aside!"
"If y' break th' door, it means poun's an' poun's," screamed the
virago. The listening man heard a crash, and an angry ejaculation from
Mrs. Narby at the destruction of her property. Then came a wild cry
from Elspeth, an oath from the landlord, and finally a panic-stricken
silence. With his fears again knocking at his heart, Herries jumped
up, and hurriedly slipped into his trousers. Scarcely were they on,
before Narby burst into the room, white-faced and savage. Behind, came
his wife, bellowing like a fury of the Revolution. Elspeth in the
meanwhile had fainted in the passage.
"You killed him!" shouted Narby fiercely, running towards Herries, and
flung him like a feather on the bed.
"Killed--killed--whom?" gasped the young man, bursting into a cold
perspiration.
"The gent as came last night. He's lying next door with his throat
slit, you murdering devil!"
"Oh!" shivered Herries, "the razor."
"Your razor!"
"It's not mine. Let me up," and he struggled to rise.
"No. You stop here, until I send for the police. 'Liza!--ah would
you?"
Herries, realizing his dreadful position, had begun to resist
violently, and Narby held him down with brawny hands. As the two swung
in close grips on the bed, there was a tinkling sound, and a shout
from Mrs. Narby, who was red-faced and furious.
"Th' key,--th' blessed key," she screeched, picking it up from the
floor, whence it had fallen off the bed. "Oh, the bloomin' Jack th'
Ripper cove. He's ruined th' cussed 'ouse."
"It's a lie--a lie," breathed Herries, weakly.
Narby, with his knee on the other's chest, laughed grimly. "You'll
have to prove that to a jury, my lad. The razor,--the key of the next
room,--the--the--why here," he broke off to snatch at the stained
shirt-sleeve, "more blood, you reptile," and he shook the young man
with unrestrained anger.
"'Ow! 'Ow! 'Ow!" Mrs. Narby began to exhibit symptoms of hysteria, "he
killed the pore gent. Pope,--Pope,--me darlin' boy. 'Elp! 'Elp."
"Let me up," gasped Herries, "you're stifling me."
"I'll leave the hangman to do that, sonny."
"I--I--won't--try to--to--escape."
"You bet you won't," said Narby, in quite an American way, and seeing
that there was really a chance of the young man becoming insensible
under over-rough handling, he released his hold. "Dress yourself," he
said sternly, "but out of this room you don't go, till the police
come. 'Liza!--I say, 'Liza?"
There was no reply. Mrs. Narby had hurled herself down the stairs and
they could hear her harsh voice clamouring for her son, and for drink
to revive her. Shortly the murmur of many voices swelled out.
Evidently the woman had summoned the neighbours, and Herries shivered
at the snarl of an enraged mob.
"I never killed the man," he wailed, utterly broken up. "I know
nothing about him,--I never saw him,--I didn't,----"
"Shut up," snapped Narby roughly, and pushed him back again on to the
disordered bed. "I've known a man lynched, down 'Frisco way, for less
than this. I reckon you'll dance at the end of a rope, before the
month's out. See here," he went to the window, glanced out and
returned to shake a large and menacing finger, more American in speech
than ever. "You try an' light out that way, sonny, an' I shoot you
straight. I keep my Derringer for use, not for show. D'ye see; you
stop here."
"I am perfectly willing," retorted Herries, now beginning to recover
his courage, since the worst of the shock was over. "I can easily
clear my character."
Narby smiled grimly, and shook his head.
"Better say no more," he advised, "what you say, will tell against
you."
"Surely you don't believe me guilty?"
"You make me tired," said Narby sharply, "you are in the next room to
a murdered man, you show me a blood-stained razor, and you have blood
on your shirt, and the key of the next room. Believe you guilty! Well,
I guess I do. Say your prayers, sonny, for you'll hang as sure as
you're a living man, which you won't be long," and without another
word, the burly landlord left the room, locking the door after him.
With an eminently human impulse to seek immediate safety, the prisoner
ran to the window. But there was no escape that way. He could easily
drop into the garden, climb over the low fence and fly across the
marshes, hidden by the kindly mists. But the palings which parted the
garden from the village street were now lined with curious and
horrified spectators. Men and women and children stared insistently at
the mean house, with that fascination begotten of a morbid love of
crime. No such exciting event had happened in the dull little Essex
village for many a year,--if indeed ever before; and the whole
population was agog with excitement. Mrs. Narby was haranguing her
neighbours, and fiercely pointing at intervals towards the house,
crying wildly that the inn was ruined. Catching sight of Herries at
the window, she shook a large fist, and a sea of faces looked upward.
Then came a howl of execration. From that terrible sound Herries,
though courageous enough, shrank back, and closed the window in a
panic. Then he staggered to the bed and lying down tried to reason
calmly.
The stranger in the next room, whosoever he was, had been murdered.
The key of that room had been found in this one; also, on the
bed-quilt had lain the weapon with which, presumably, the dead man's
throat had been cut. Then there was the damning evidence of the bloody
sleeve. Herries examined this, and found that the stains streaked
downward from the elbow, as though someone with reddened fingers had
drawn them down the woollen fabric. On making this discovery the
unhappy man regained his feet, scenting a conspiracy. "Some enemy has
done this," he argued, trying to keep himself cool and composed. "I
have fallen into a trap. The assassin, after committing the crime,
must have come deliberately into my room, in order to implicate me in
the matter. I was sound asleep, so he could easily have smeared my
sleeve and left the razor and key. But who could have done it, and why
was it done? I know no one in these parts,--I arrived here alone and
unknown, and----"
He stopped as a sudden thought flashed through his brain. Michael
Gowrie knew his name, and Gowrie had come to this very room on the
previous evening with a glass of toddy. Could it be that Gowrie had
murdered this unknown man, and had then arranged the snare, so that a
perfectly innocent being should bear the penalty of his wickedness. It
was credible, and yet,--from what Herries remembered of the old
scamp,--Gowrie was not the man to commit so dreadful a deed. In his
degraded state, the ex-minister would steal at a pinch in order to
procure money for drink. He would lie glibly; he would blackmail, and
bear false witness to serve his own ends; but Herries could not think
even so base a man capable of murder. For one thing he would not have
the nerve, seeing that drink had shattered his system. No! It would
not be Gowrie, and yet, if not Gowrie, who could have an interest in
implicating a stranger in the awful tragedy?
Again, as Herries reflected when his brain became clearer, Mrs. Narby
said that the gentleman, who had occupied the bedroom next door, had
departed in his noticeable fur coat at eight o'clock. If it was he who
had passed through the tap-room, it certainly could not be him, who
was lying dead in the next room. The affair was puzzling, and not the
least mysterious thing was that no one in the house knew the dead
man's name. He had come to see someone and had duly retired to bed;
next morning he was found dead. If this was the case, who then could
be the man who had visited him on the previous night? Who was the man
who had left at eight in the morning, disguised in a fur coat
belonging to the dead? There could be but one answer. He was the
assassin.
Again Herries looked out of the window, and saw that two men,--yokels
apparently,--were guarding it below; he stole to the door, and
strained his hearing to listen. Many people were coming and going in
the passage, and he heard the faint murmur of voices. What was going
on in the death-chamber, he could not think. The partitions of the
inn, doubtless constructed long ago for smuggling purposes, were
unusually thick, and even had a man spoken loudly in the next room,
the listener would have heard nothing but the sound. In that case, as
he argued, he could not have saved the dead man, even had he been
awake. Probably the poor wretch's throat had been cut in his sleep.
And who had killed him? And why had he, Angus Herries, a stranger, a
wanderer on the face of the earth, been dragged into so hideous an
affair?
These questions he asked himself constantly, while the slow hours
dragged onward. The village--Desleigh was its name, as he heard
later--was a long distance from the nearest town, whence a police
inspector could be called; and the local constable, without doubt, had
two or three of such villages to attend to. It was quite four or five
hours since he had been shut up in his room, and no one had been near
him. To pass the time, and escape from the terrible thoughts which
tormented his brain, Herries dressed himself as neatly as he could. On
leaving Pierside he had taken nothing with him, as his enemy the
captain had detained all his luggage. He had nothing but the clothes
he stood up in, and a few shillings,--say ten. On arriving at the
"Marsh Inn," he had possessed fifteen, but five of these he had given
for bed and board. He cursed the inn. Had he not halted here, this
trouble would never have come upon his already over-burdened
shoulders. And yet, he could not be sure of this. He had always been
Jonah the unlucky, and Jonah he would remain, so far as his limited
vision could see, until the end of his life. Throughout five and
twenty years of existence he had suffered nothing but trouble.
Everything went wrong with him. This new disaster was all of a piece
with the rest of the pattern, that was being woven,--against his will,
it would seem--on the looms of life. He wondered, with a sigh, why God
permitted so many troubles to befall him, since he could see no good
reason for their coming to him so persistently. Then out of sheer
desire to do something, he searched his pockets for the remains of his
poor fortune.
The ten shillings had vanished. Yet Herries knew that he had counted
them on the previous evening, immediately before he retired to
bed, and he had placed them in the right-hand pocket of his
trousers,--eight shillings and four sixpences. Alarmed at the loss,
which meant everything to him, he felt in every pocket, looked under
his pillow, examined the floor, but could find no trace of the money.
"How on earth can I get to Tarhaven?" he asked himself, and then it
came upon him with a shock, that he was not a free man.
Shortly a soft tap at the door roused him. He told the person who
knocked to enter, and a key turned in the lock. Elspeth, her face
white and her eyes red, entered, carrying a tray laden with coarse
food. This she set down, then impulsively she rushed forward and
caught his hand.
"You never did it," she panted, eagerly, and staring at him with
burning eyes. "You never, never did it."
"Of course not. I can prove my innocence. No," he made a gesture of
despair, as the full terror of his situation rushed upon him, "I say
that to comfort myself. I am in a perilous position."
"That a kind man such as you are, should do such a thing," the girl
went on, almost to herself, "it's ridiculous. You helped me with that
bucket; you would not murder a poor soul in his sleep."
"That I did not. I swear by all that I hold sacred," said Herries,
grateful for this true sympathy. "But you see how I am placed; you
know the strong evidence against me."
Elspeth nodded.
"Mr. and Mrs. Narby are talking of it," she whispered, with a
significant glance at the door, behind which no doubt some one was
watching. "The police will be here soon. They have sent to Tarhaven,
for the Inspector and the Doctor."
"What is the time now?"
"It is close upon three o'clock," said Elspeth. "Armour, who is the
village constable, is on his rounds at some other village, and
although they have sent out to get him, he cannot be found. But Pope
has gone by train to Tarhaven to bring the Inspector. I expect he'll
return every minute. And I cannot stop long; they will miss me. But I
want to be your friend," she added again catching his hand. "Tell me,
is there anyone I can send for, who will help you?"
"There is my friend, Dr. James Browne of Tarhaven. I have not seen him
for a couple of years, but I daresay he'll remember me. Write and ask
him to come, or perhaps you could procure me writing material."
"No. They," she alluded to the Narby's, "will allow you nothing."
"Then send the letter yourself to Browne, you kind little soul. He may
say a good word for me."
"Is there no one else?"
Herries' head drooped.
"There is one I should not like to hear of my disgrace," he said,
faintly.
"Ah!" the girl's dark eyes lighted up with a jealous flame, "and her
name, Mr. Herries?"
The young man looked surprised.
"How can you guess that I am thinking of a woman?"
"I guess, because--because--oh, you would not understand. What is her
name? I'll see her if you like," her face grew red as she spoke, and
had Herries been more experienced in the other sex, he might have seen
that her feelings towards him, for his simple act of kindness, were
such as to make her hate anyone doing things for him, save herself.
However, he saw nothing of this, and gave the information with all
frankness.
"Maud Tedder, she is a cousin of mine, the daughter of Sir Simon
Tedder, a famous manufacturer you may have heard of."
Elspeth nodded.
"I've seen his name on jam tins and such like," she said rapidly. "He
has a great house at Tarhaven."
"I know. I have been there once, a couple of years ago. But he
quarrelled with me, and turned me out."
"Because of Miss--Miss?" she could not say the name.
"Yes! I wanted to marry my cousin. Sir Simon would not let me."
"And she--she----?"
"She obeyed her father, as a daughter should," said Herries bitterly.
"But I do not know why I talk of these very private affairs to you.
But if you would----"
"Hush!" Elspeth placed a silencing finger on her lips, "the police."
Hardly had she left the room, when the Inspector--as he evidently was
from his smart uniform--entered in an abrupt manner. He was a kindly,
red-faced man, with a military moustache, and an official manner,
which made him assume a severity which Herries guessed was foreign to
his nature. Two policemen were visible in the narrow passage as the
Inspector entered the room, after a word or two with the girl, to
learn why she had been with the prisoner.
"Your name?" demanded the officer sharply, and taking in Herries'
looks with a shrewd and observant eye.
"Angus Herries. I am innocent," said the accused man hurriedly, then,
anxious to exculpate himself, he talked on vehemently, and thereby did
the worst thing possible. "I do not know the dead man's name, or the
man himself. I have never seen him. I was fast asleep all the time. I
found the razor, and----"
"Stop," said the Inspector peremptorily, "anything you say now will be
used in evidence against you. Hold your tongue, until I am ready to
examine you, and follow me," and with that he turned his back to march
out of the room.
Herries saw that it would be as well to be circumspect, and walked
silently after the representative of the law. The official turned to
the right and opened the door of the death room at which Narby was
standing. This was the first time the Inspector had been inside, and
he wanted Herries to be present to see what effect the sight of his
supposed victim would have on his nerves. The young man was glad to
enter. He wished to face the worst at once.
The room was similar to the other, bare, cold-looking, and sparingly
furnished with the flotsam and jetsam of auction rooms. Everything
seemed to be disordered, but the bedclothes were smoothed out, and
thereon lay a stiff figure, covered with a sheet. The police officer
turned down the sheet and beckoned Herries to approach. The very next
moment the young man staggered back amazed.
"Great Heavens!" he gasped, thunderstruck, "it is Sir Simon Tedder!"