IN THE OAK-PANELLED HALL
It seemed to him like an age, but was really only a few minutes, before
Laurence Carrington recovered consciousness. When he did so it was with
a violent pain in his head and neck.
Old "Doctor Meadows" was bending over him as he lay on a bench in the
hall at which he had peeped through the keyhole of the great oak door.
The servant, Horncastle, was not to be seen.
Laurence struggled to rise, but the burning pain in his neck, and a
feeling of dizziness and extreme weakness, prevented him. The "doctor"
motioned to him to keep still.
"You will be better soon," he said encouragingly; "thank Heaven we were
in time, or the brute would have done for you. Strange, stranger than
strange," he went on, half aloud, "that we should have returned from the
distant East, have allowed a couple of dozen years to pass without being
so much as aware whether each other still lived, and that--that we
should come together like this."
Laurence saw that he was thinking aloud. He waited silently to hear what
the old gentleman would say further. But though the young man could see
his companion's lips moving, he was disappointed, in that the "doctor"
concluded his thoughts on the subject beneath his breath.
"What happened?" Laurence asked at length. "It was 'it' that attacked
me, was it not?"
"Yes, 'it,'" replied the "doctor," with a shake of his head. "I trust,"
he went on, "that Horncastle will catch him."
"I should think," replied Laurence, "that the terrible enemy of my
father and your convict servant would make a good match."
The old man leaped back as though shot.
"You know that?" he cried, evidently referring to Carrington's allusion
to Horncastle--"you know that? What else do you know?"
Laurence shook his head.
"Not very much," he answered with a smile, as he raised himself to a
sitting posture. "And you?"
"Me! Well, I know everything."
"What!" the young man shouted, "you know who my father's enemy is?"
"I do."
"And you know my father. What else do YOU know?"
"I know," responded Meadows slowly, "that the 'long arm of coincidence'
is, well, longer than the 'long arm of the law.'"
"What do you mean?"
"I have already told you. I mean that I, the suspected, spied-upon man
of mystery (that's so, is it not?), I am the man who alone can throw
light upon--can, moreover, effectually solve--the secrets of your
father, Major Carrington's life."
"Then he is 'the' Major Carrington, of Madras?"
"He is."
"But," muttered Laurence, half aloud, "he told me that only one man
(besides his enemy) ever learned his strange, inviolate secret."
"And I am that one man," responded the "doctor."
"Now," exclaimed Laurence angrily, "now I know you are lying. The man
who held the Squire's secret died years ago."
"And," was the "doctor's" quiet reply, "so did I!"
And, before Laurence could find words to express his feelings at such a
mad, mysterious remark, there came the sound of flying feet thundering
along the stone passage and drawing towards the door, through which he
had himself been dragged after the attack in the dark.
The oak door now stood open. From within no one would have believed it
to be a door, the oak panelling of the walls being so skilfully imitated
on it.
Through it, like a madman, rushed the convict servant, Horncastle. His
face was white as a sheet, his breath came in jerks. Terror was manifest
on his repulsive features.
"Thank God, I'm free from it," he almost shrieked, as he rushed up to
the other two men.
Lighted only by a single tallow candle, the scene was a strange one--one
that an artist would have given much to have an opportunity of
picturing. The shadows on the men's faces, the cunningly wrought
panelling of the great lonesome hall, the air of mystery that seemed to
hang about the place--all these made the picture one that Laurence never
forgot.
"Well," asked Meadows, "why have you not caught him?"
"The darkness," explained the convict servant, "the darkness, the awful
darkness! I'd stand up to any man in the kingdoms, but that cursed
silence and gloom and its 'orrors are a bit too much. And that creature,
'arf man, 'arf beast, seemed like the 'old man' 'isself, the way he
slipped out of my grasp, which ain't a light one, as this 'ere gent
knows." And the fellow had the audacity to pat Laurence on the shoulder.
He was no longer the terrified creature of a moment before, when in the
company of two of his fellow-creatures.
Meadows looked at him with ill-disguised expressions of disgust. But he
did not speak. Instead, he motioned to the servant to depart.
By this time Laurence was able to rise and move about without being
overcome by the pains in his neck and head. He turned to Meadows, who
had astounded him a moment before by his casual remark that he was a man
who had been dead many years.
"Please explain the strange observation you made when
Mr.--er--Horncastle interrupted us by his return." The convict scowled,
and looked daggers at Meadows, who, however, did not notice, for he was
deep in thought.
"Mr. Carrington," he said at length, "I can tell you a little now, but
not all. First tell me in what way you think you were attacked."
"I cannot. I only know that I felt as though someone was cutting my
throat."
"Someone," replied "Doctor Meadows," "was doing more. He was trying to
break your neck."
"Ah!" Laurence exclaimed, "like he did my poor father's. And how did he
do it? It was all so quickly, so cleverly done."
"It was done by a man who has made a careful study of murder."
"Good gracious, for what purpose?"
"For the purpose of murdering your father!"
"No, no, it cannot be!" exclaimed Laurence. "Why this enmity? What has
the Squire done?"
"Nothing," responded Meadows; "and can't you see, now, who and what the
creature is that is hiding in yonder darkness?"
"No. Who? What?"
"Don't you know what harmless weapon it is that when skilfully wielded
deals death more cruelly than knife or gun? Why, a cord, a piece of silk
cord!"
"Then," Laurence shouted, for the words shed light upon the dark subject
that he had tried so hard to penetrate--"then the man is a--a----"
"A Thug," was the grim reply.