A CLOUD OF BLOOD.
“Who’s to tell her?” Sir Thomas Annesley, Mr. Jacobs at his heels, came
flying into Levallion’s own den, where something told him Houghton
would be. But there was another man beside Houghton, and the boy drew
back at the sight of him, just as the man started forward.
“Why are you here? Haven’t you done mischief enough?” The young face
was dreadful with its pinched nostrils and red eyes. “If you’d never
come here, she’d never have come to this!”
“It’s true enough,” said Adrian Gordon grimly, as Houghton would have
hushed the lad. “But, before God, Tommy, I believe my being here had
nothing to do with it! I think you’ve got to look deeper than that for
Levallion’s death, and outside! It seems to me that my only share in
the business is to have made your sister a convenient scapegoat. And
God knows that’s black enough.”
Tommy Annesley hid his face in his hands, and the tears oozed through
his fingers.
“Don’t, lad, don’t!” said Houghton pitifully. “A coroner’s inquest
means very little. Please God, we’ll find out who did it, long before
the trial.”
“That’s just it,” hoarsely. “The trial! She’s got to stand up there
innocent, and have the--every one”--desperately--“think her guilty.
Can’t you see, Houghton, that every soul in the house has cleared
themselves but her?”
“Every soul outside hasn’t, though,” Gordon said slowly. “And any jury
but a set of prejudiced fools would have seen it.” He gently pushed
away Jacobs, who was slobbering at his knee.
“Do you mean you know any one who was likely to have done it--who hated
Levallion?” said Houghton bluntly.
“There were plenty,” answered Gordon, as Lacy had before him. “Who
knows who that woman was who was hanging about? Or the man Tommy
thought was I? And what became of those letters Lady Levallion thought
were in Levallion’s pocket? They’re a small thing, perhaps, but suppose
I hadn’t come down? Who was going to know that card of mine asking her
to meet me wasn’t written that very morning? Whoever took those letters
meant it to seem so,” emphatically.
“No one could have. Levallion--the body”--stammering--“was never left
alone till the coroner came.”
“It was!” Tommy lifted his tear-stained face. “Didn’t you know? When
the coroner came there wasn’t a soul in the room. You’d gone to
Ravenel, the others had cleared off to the smoking-room. It was I took
Aston in there, and the room was empty. Any one in the house might have
gone in there. The hall was full of people, but there are three other
doors to the drawing-room.”
“And any one out of it,” Gordon added obstinately. “Look here, Tommy,
how could you think it was I Jacobs flew at that night in the wood? See
him!” for Jacobs had lain down with his head on the speaker’s boot.
“It was the Norfolk jacket and the knickerbockers and the height,”
wretchedly. “The other men were in the drawing-room--none of the
servants were so tall--except Carrousel--and he has a beard! This man
had only a mustache. I saw the line of his chin when he stood up and
yelled.”
“As I should have been likely to yell on account of Jacobs!”
scornfully. “Why on earth didn’t you tell some one what you saw, Tommy?”
“I’d have only said it was you! I did try to tell Levallion, but the
second I spoke about the woman he shut me up. Lacy was there; Levallion
never talked before servants. Oh!” he broke off wildly, “what’s the
good of talking? Some one must go and tell Ravenel. Will they take
her--to jail--till the assizes?” A hard sob broke his words.
“I don’t know,” Houghton muttered. “Perhaps bail”--but he knew quite
well there was no bail for murder. He got up, for the boy was right.
Some one must tell Lady Levallion.
“Damn that housemaid!” he broke out fiercely, standing with his hand on
the door.
“Look here,” said Gordon quickly, “wait a moment. Don’t say anything
like that outside; don’t say a word to frighten any of the servants.”
“Why?” Houghton looked at him without too much favor. He had certainly
had nothing to do with the crime, but his stay in the house had every
day added one to the letters that spelled “murderess” after Lady
Levallion’s name.
“Because they’ve all given their evidence; they’re quite comfortable
about none of them being implicated. They’ll talk among themselves and
compare notes, and they may find out something. I sha’n’t allow one of
them to leave.”
Houghton realized suddenly that it was the new Lord Levallion who stood
before him.
“I forgot,” he said involuntarily, “you are master here now.”
“And I’d rather be a one-armed sandwich-man!” returned Adrian
Gordon, with a bitter glance at the injured arm that had kept him in
Levallion’s house. And the memory of that day brought back something;
the unknown woman who had come to see if he were dead. There was only
one woman in the world who could hope, however falsely, to gain by his
dying.
“Hester Murray!” he thought sharply. “But of all women on earth she
would be the least likely to be here. Levallion wouldn’t have had it.”
And yet the thought clung obstinately.
“I’ll find out,” he said aloud, and Tommy looked up where he sat wan
and exhausted.
“What?” he demanded. “I don’t see how any one can find out anything. We
know all anybody knows.”
“We know all some one chooses us to know,” hardly. “We’re not beaten
yet. Try and remember what that woman looked like whom Levallion told
you was a kitchen-maid.”
“How do I know?” wretchedly. “I only saw her twice; both times it was
dark. She had a cloak on with a hood, and was holding up a train. She
may live right under our noses.”
“All the same, she’s our only chance.”
He shivered, and stirred the fire. For if he were wrong and that
cloaked woman not Hester Murray, the chance was small. Beat his brains
as he would, he could think of no one else who might profit by the
death of Lord Levallion.
The clock struck six, and, like a blow, the sound struck on his heart,
making him forget everything but the girl up-stairs. Houghton must be
with her now; must be telling her what the jury had said. Houghton, an
absolute stranger--while the man who should have been her husband dared
not go near her; the man who should have sheltered her from all the
world could do nothing but sit helpless while some one else spoke the
very bitterest shame on earth in her ears.
“Nel, my Nel!” And if Adrian Gordon was silent, his spirits groaned
within him.
Sylvia Annesley and her schemes had come between them once; then
Levallion; and now, to the eyes of the world, a bar of blood they could
not pass.
“Blood between us; love, my love!” the man said silently, behind his
shut teeth. “Not while I’m alive or there’s a God above us. Somehow,
somewhere, I mean to find the truth that’s going to set you clear--and
clean! If I dare not go to you I can work for you; and if I can’t
comfort you”--unconsciously he raised his right hand as some men do
when they take an oath--“I’ll save you, if I have to take you out of
Newgate!”
He raised his eyes and saw Houghton had come back.
“Well?” he said thickly.
“Very ill.” Houghton cast himself into a chair as if he could do no
more. “She knew! That fool of a housemaid ran up screaming and told
her, begging her to forgive her--if they hanged her! The French maid
took the crazy fool by the ears and put her out. But----”
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
“What’s she doing--Ravenel?” Tommy was on his feet, pale as Levallion
up-stairs.
“Nothing! Just sitting there like death. Go to her and see if you can
make her cry. I couldn’t make her even seem to hear me.”
As the door closed behind the boy, Houghton turned to Adrian.
“It was to say good-by I sent him,” he said drearily. “The warrant has
come to arrest her.”
“She sha’n’t go!” cried Gordon blackly; but he knew he was talking
nonsense.
“There’s no choice! To-morrow you may--if you move heaven and earth and
the stars in their course”--bitterly--“be able to bail her out again.”
He turned to the window because there were tears in his eyes, and so
did not see that every trace of humanity had been wiped out of Adrian
Gordon’s countenance, as in a voice the like of which Doctor Houghton
had never heard, he called down the wrath of God on Levallion’s secret
murderer.