As the detective pronounced the name “James Woodfall,” I gave a cry
that startled them all. Shaken as my trust in Mr. Rayner had already
been, the shock seemed in a moment to change the aspect of the whole
world to me. I shrank even from Laurence as he would have put his arms
round me, and my wild wandering eyes fell upon Mrs. Rayner, who sat
with her hands tightly clasped and head bent, listening to the
proclamation of the secret which had weighed her down for years. And,
as I looked at her, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes, my dull
wits to become keener, and part of the mystery of the house on the
marsh to grow clear to me.
I sank down upon the floor beside her, and she put her thin wasted
arms round my neck and kissed me without a word. And the three men
quietly left the room. We did not say much even then.
“Oh, Mrs. Rayner,” I whispered, “it is terrible for you!”
“Not so terrible to me,” she whispered back wearily. “I have known it
for years--almost ever since I married him. But don’t talk about it
any more,” said she, glancing furtively round the room. “He may be in
the house at this moment; and they might search and watch for months,
but they would never catch him. But he will make us suffer--me--ah,
and you too now! You were so unsuspicious, yet it must have been you
who set Laurence Reade upon the track.”
“Not of Mr. Rayner. Oh, I never thought of such a thing!” I whispered,
shuddering.
And I told her all about my suspicions of Tom Parkes, my visit to the
Hall, my letter to Laurence, and all I said in it.
“Mr. Reade has shown energy and courage,” said she. “But he will
suffer for it too. You don’t know that man yet. He will never let
Laurence marry you. Even if he were in prison, he would manage to
prevent it.”
Luckily Laurence himself tapped at the door at that moment, for Mrs.
Rayner’s gloomy forebodings were fast increasing the fever of my
overwrought mind. He came to say that the constables had returned to
the house, having failed in the fog to find any traces of Gordon, or
of--of any of the others. He was going to return with them to the
Hall, where they would sleep, leaving Maynard to pass the night at the
Alders, as his missing host had invited him to do, and a couple of
constables to keep watch in turn, though there was nothing less likely
than that the--the persons they were in search of would return to the
Alders that night. Then he said very gently to poor Mrs. Rayner--
“Will you forgive me for what I have done in all innocence? I had some
vague suspicions, the reasons for which I will explain to you
presently; but indeed I never thought to bring such a blow as this
upon you.”
“It is no blow to me,” said she, raising her sad eyes to his face.
“That man--my husband--would have got rid of me long ago, but that he
hated violence and dreaded it. Everything short of that he has tried,”
she whispered; “and it is not my fault that my wretched life has
lingered on in spite of him.”
Laurence ground his teeth.
“The wretch!” he said, in a low voice. “But he shall pay for it now.
I’ll ransack the whole world till we have unearthed him.”
“You will never do that,” said she calmly. “He dares too much for
that. He is no coward to lie hid in a corner,” she went on, with a
sort of perverse pride in the man for whom every spark of love was
long since dead. “He will brave you to your faces and escape you all.
But you have done your best. You are a brave man, Mr. Reade. You would
help me if you could. Good-night.”
She shook hands with him, and left the room. He turned to me quickly.
“You must both leave this place,” said he. “The long-continued
suffering has almost turned that poor lady’s brain. But she is safe
from that vile wretch now; and you too, oh, my darling, thank Heaven!”
There was a tap at the door, and the voice of the elder detective
said--
“Are you ready, sir?”
“All right,” said Laurence; and then added, in a voice for me only,
“I’m not ready a bit. I should like to stay and comfort you for ever.
Take care of your poor little wounded arm. Good-night, good-night, my
darling!”
I heard him leave the house with the constables. Then, exhausted by
the events of the day and night, I just managed to crawl upstairs to
my room, and, throwing myself upon the bed without undressing, I fell
into a deep sleep which was more like a swoon. In the early morning I
woke, feeling stiff and ill, undressed, and got into bed; and when the
sun had risen I got up with hot and aching head, and found that my arm
was beginning to be very painful.
Haidee and I had breakfast alone, for the cook told me that Mr.
Maynard had already started for London; and I was just going to see
how Mrs. Rayner was when Doctor Lowe arrived on his daily visit to
Sarah. As soon as he saw me he ordered me off to bed, and then, after
making him swear secrecy, which did not make much difference, as the
story would certainly be all over the neighborhood and in the London
newspapers before long, I let him draw from me an account of the
greater part of the events of the previous day. He said very little in
comment beyond telling me that I was “a little simpleton to be so
easily humbugged,” and that he had always mistrusted Mr. Rayner, but
that now he admired him; and then, strictly forbidding me to leave my
bed until his visit next day, he left me.
Jane came up to me soon after. She had only just come home from
Wright’s Farm, and was full of curiosity excited to the highest pitch
by the vague account that the cook, who was deaf and had not heard
much, had given her of the events which had taken place in her
absence. I told her that there had been a robbery at the Hall, that
the man who had asked to speak to me was a detective, and that he and
Mr. Rayner had left the Alders.
My faith in the latter was gone altogether; but my affection for him
was gradually coming back again. The fearfully wicked things that he
had done I had only heard about; and how could the impression so given
outweigh that much stronger one of his constant kindness to me? And to
think that it was I who had drawn down justice--for it was justice, I
sorrowfully admitted--upon him caused me bitter remorse.
Laurence told me, in one of the little notes he kept leaving for me
all day long, that it was expected that Mr. Rayner would brave
everything and return to the Alders sooner or later, if only for a
flying visit, and that, in consequence, the search of the house which
must take place was to be postponed, and the place watched, with as
much caution as possible, from the outside. By letting the life at the
Alders go on as usual, it was hoped that he might be lured back under
the impression that he was not expected to return there. Laurence had
telegraphed to my mother to tell her that I was quite safe and the
journey put off, in order to allay her fears about me.
Mrs. Rayner brought one of these notes up to me late in the afternoon.
In addition to her usual pallor, she had great black rings round her
eyes; and, in answer to my inquiries, she confessed that she had not
slept all night.
“I have something to tell you,” she whispered in my ear. “Mrs.
Saunders drinks, and is not a proper guardian for Sarah. She is afraid
of Mr. Rayner; but last night, knowing he was not in the house, she
was in nearly as excited a state as her patient, and was very rough
with her. Sarah’s room is nearly opposite mine, and I opened my door
and heard what sounded like a struggle. Maynard, who was in the room
next to the dressing-room, either did not hear or did not like to
interfere. But now he is gone; and I ought to be used to terrors, but
I am afraid;” and she shuddered.
“Surely there is nothing to be afraid of if you lock your door, Mrs.
Rayner?”
“I have no key. Will you leave your door open and the door at the foot
of the turret staircase? I know you must not leave your bed; but it
will be some comfort to know you are within hearing.”
I promised; and that night, when Jane came up to my room for the last
time, I made her leave the doors open when she went down.
The sense of being on the alert made me wakeful, and two or three
times during the night I rose and stood at the top of my staircase,
listening. And the third time I did hear something. I heard a faint
cry, and presently the soft shutting of a door, then steps in the
corridor below, and whispering. I crept half-way down the stairs; the
whispering continued. I got to the bottom, and recognized Sarah’s
voice muttering to herself. I would rather have again faced Gordon
with his revolver than this madwoman; but I was so anxious about Mrs.
Rayner that, after a few minutes spent in prayer, I ventured out from
the doorway, and found Sarah crouched in a corner muttering to
herself. The wretched woman started up on seeing me; but, instead of
attempting to approach me, she hung back, moving her still bandaged
head and her one free hand restlessly, and saying--
“I’ve done it--I’ve done it! He’ll come back now. I’ve done what he
wanted. He can marry the Christie girl now. It’s all right. He’ll come
back again now.”
With a terrible fear at my heart, I dashed along the corridor to Mrs.
Rayner’s room and went straight in. The atmosphere of the room was
sickly and stifling. I went up to the bed. Mrs. Rayner was lying with
a cloth over her face! I snatched it off. It was steeped in something
which I afterwards learnt was chloroform. Thank Heaven, she was
alive!--for she was breathing heavily. I rushed to the two windows and
flung them wide open, pulled the bell-rope until the house echoed, and
moved her arms up and down. The cook and Jane came in, terribly
alarmed, in their night gowns. I left them with Mrs. Rayner while I
ran downstairs for some brandy.
There was some on the sideboard in the dining-room, I knew; and I was
returning with it, and was just outside the dining-room door, when I
caught sight of a man in the gloom at the end of the passage leading
from the hall. He had come from Mr. Rayner’s study, and disappeared in
a moment in the darkness. It was impossible to recognize him; but I
could not doubt that it was Mr. Rayner.
Where was he going? Was he going to escape by the back way? Did he
know the house was watched? I made a step forward, anxious to warn
him; but he had already disappeared, and I dared not follow him.
I crept upstairs, too much agitated to be of any use any longer; but
happily Mrs. Rayner was already recovering, and the brandy-and-water
restored her entirely to consciousness. I spent the rest of the night
in her room, after I had, with the cook’s assistance, persuaded the
unhappy lunatic who had done the mischief to return to her own room,
where we found, as I had expected, Mrs. Saunders in a stupid, heavy
sleep, half in her arm-chair and half on the floor. The cook declined
to watch in place of her for the remainder of the night, but as a
precaution locked the door on the outside and took the key away.
“Now, if Sarah wants to do any more mischief, let her try it on Mrs.
Saunders,” said she.
I could scarcely approve of this way of settling the difficulty; but
happily no harm came of it; and Mrs. Saunders profited by the lesson,
and kept pretty sober after that.
This woman, having been sent from town by Mr. Rayner, had taken upon
herself in some sort the authority formerly held by Sarah in the
household, and she now suggested that Mrs. Rayner had better go back
to her old room in the left wing, saying she would take charge of it
for her as Sarah had done. The poor lady came up herself to my room,
where, having made my arm much worse by my expedition in the night, I
was lying in bed the whole of the next day.
“Why do you go back if you don’t wish to do so, Mrs. Rayner?” I asked.
“I expect it is by Mr. Rayner’s orders,” she whispered.
And, my strong suspicion that he was in the house acting like a spell
upon me, I said no more.
But I was curious to know what was the mystery that hung about that
bedroom in the left wing which no one was allowed to enter but Mrs.
Rayner, Mr. Rayner, and Sarah; and I resolved that, as soon as I
could, I would try to induce Mrs. Rayner to let me go in there.
As I lay thinking of all the strange and horrible events which had
filled my life lately, the thought of Mr. Rayner lying concealed in
his own house, perhaps hidden in some cellar the existence of which
was unknown to every one else, came uppermost in my mind. It was the
most dreadful blow I had ever experienced to have my respect and
affection for a kind friend turned suddenly into horror of a great
criminal. But I would not believe that he was all bad. How could a man
who was so kind and sweet-tempered have no redeeming points at all?
And it was I, who had never received anything but kindness at his
hands, who--innocently indeed--had drawn down this pursuit upon him.
There were only two things that I could do now. I could pray for him,
as I did most earnestly, that he might repent of what he had done, and
become in very truth all that he had seemed to me; and I could perhaps
let him know how the thought that it was I who had brought down
justice upon him tormented me.
A possible means of communicating with him occurred to me. In spite of
the Doctor’s prohibition, I sprang out of bed, got my desk, and wrote
a note asking his forgiveness, and giving him a full explanation of
the way in which, in all innocence, I had written the letter which had
led to this pursuit of him. I told him the house was being watched,
and was to be searched before long, and begged that, when he had got
away, he would find some means of letting me know he was in safety. “I
do pray for you every night and morning. I can’t forget all your
kindness to me, whatever you have done, and I don’t wish to do so,” I
added, as a last thought in a P.S. And then I put on my dressing-gown,
and, when I heard nobody about, slipped down by the back staircase to
his study, where I put the note, directed simply to “G. Rayner, Esq.,”
just inside the drawer of his writing-table, and crept guiltily
upstairs again.
Mrs. Manners came to see me that afternoon; Laurence had confided
nearly everything to her, and she was much more severe upon Mr. Rayner
than I--quite unchristian, I thought, and rather angry with me for not
being as bitter as herself against him.
“Don’t you know he wanted Sarah to kill his own wife that he might
marry you, child, and, when Sarah was taken ill and couldn’t do it, he
wanted to run away with you?”
“Yes; but, as he was prevented from doing either of those things, it
is easier to forgive him. Don’t you think I ought to try to forgive
him, Mrs. Manners?”
“I don’t know, I am sure, child,” said she, after a little hesitation.
“But I think it ought to require an effort.”
Then she told me that, when Laurence had heard that morning through
Jane of the night’s adventure, he had gone to Dr. Lowe and insisted
upon Sarah’s removal to the county lunatic asylum that very day; and I
never saw the poor creature again.
When Mrs. Manners had left me, and Jane had come up at four o’clock
with a cup of tea, I insisted on getting up and being dressed, as I
wanted to see Mrs. Rayner, and find out whether she had heard of
Sarah’s departure. I heard that she had gone to her old room in the
left wing, and, having taken the precaution to wrap a shawl round me
before entering that long cold passage, I passed through the heavy
swing-door, the very sight of which I hated.
I was opposite to the store-room door, when it was softly opened, and,
without being able to make any resistance, I was drawn inside by a
man’s arm. I looked up, expecting to see Mr. Rayner, and was
horror-stricken to find myself in the arms of Gordon, the man who had
shot me. It was so dark already in the store-room, lighted only by one
little high window, that, his back being turned towards it, I could
not see his face.
“Don’t tremble so,” said he--his voice was always hard, but he did not
mean to speak unkindly. “I meant to do for you before I left this
house; but this has saved you.” And he showed me my letter to Mr.
Rayner.
“Do you know where he is?” I asked eagerly.
“No, ma’am,” said he, in his respectful servant’s manner; “but I
should say that he is on his way to America by now, where he meant to
have taken you.”
“Me? America?”
“Yes, ma’am. Miss Haidee was to have been left at Liverpool Street
Station, and brought back to the Alders.”
“But I wouldn’t have gone.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am; but I don’t think your will would have
stood out against James’s--Mr. Rayner’s. And, if this letter had not
shown you to be loyal to him, I would not have left you here alive. I
am surprised myself, knowing how set he was upon having your company,
that he did not come back and carry you off with him. But I suppose he
thought better of it, begging your pardon, ma’am. I may take this
opportunity of apologizing for having once borrowed a trinket of yours
while you were staying at Denham Court. But, as it was one which I
myself had had the pleasure of assisting Mr. Rayner to procure from
Lord Dalston’s, I thought it wisest to pull off the little plate at
the back, for fear of its being recognized by Mr. Carruthers, in whose
service I was when I was first introduced to Lord Dalston’s seat in
Derbyshire.”
“My pendant!” I cried. “It--it was real then?”
“Yes, ma’am. I had to remonstrate then with Mr. Rayner for his
rashness in giving it you; but nothing ever went wrong with
him--daring as he is--till you came across his path, ma’am. He was too
tender-hearted. If I did not feel sure that he is by this time on the
high-road to fresh successes in the New World, I would shoot you dead
this instant without a moment’s compunction.”
I shuddered, glancing at his hands, which were slim and small, like
those of a man who has never done rough work. I saw that he had got
rid of his handcuffs.
“I have nothing to keep me here now, ma’am; so I shall be off
to-night: and, if you care to hear how I get on, you will be able to
do so by applying to my late master, Mr. Carruthers.”
He led me courteously to the door, bowed me out, and shut himself in
again, while I went on, trembling and bewildered, towards Mrs.
Rayner’s room.
I knocked at the door. At first there was no answer. I called her by
name, and begged her to let me in. At last I heard her voice close to
the other side of the door.
“What do you want, Miss Christie?”
“May I come in, Mrs. Rayner? I have something to tell you.”
“I can’t let you in. Can you speak through the door?”
“No, no; I must see you. I have something very important to say about
Mr. Rayner,” I whispered into the key-hole.
“Is he here?” she faltered.
“No; he has gone to America,” I whispered.
She gave a long shuddering sigh, and then said--
“I--I will let you in.”
She turned the key slowly, while I trembled with impatience outside
the door.
When I found myself inside the room which had been a mystery to me for
so long, nothing struck me at first but a sense of cold and darkness.
There was only one window, which was barred on the inside; the fog
still hung about the place, and the little light there had been all
day was fading fast, for it was five o’clock. But, as I stepped
forward farther into the room, I drew my breath fast in horror. For I
became aware of a smell of damp and decay; I felt that the boards of
the floor under the carpet were rotten and yielding to my feet, and I
saw that the paper was peeling off the wet and mouldy walls, and that
the water was slowly trickling down them.
“Oh, Mrs. Rayner,” I cried, aghast, “is this your room--where you
sleep?”
“I have slept in it for three years,” said she. “If my husband had had
his will, it would have been my tomb.”