A strange night that at The Place. Fulk felt safer now he was out of the city: but Violet had too vivid a memory of the past. In the very house where so many happy hours had been pa.s.sed she was alone with a perfect stranger, or one who was a stranger but a little while before.

And Aymer?

"Where could Aymer be?" was the question she constantly asked.

Fulk said, "Aymer was doubtless at Belthrop, trying to find her."

"But Hannah Bond knows I started for Stirmingham," objected Violet. "If Aymer should see her, and go back to Stirmingham. I must write to her-- or will you?"

"I will go and see her," said Fulk; "certainly I will. But remember that I am in hiding; it must be at night. Wait till to-morrow night.

Give Aymer that little time to come, then I will go."

"Hannah must come and live here with me," said Violet, musingly. "I think I shall stay at The Place till--till--where is your newspaper?"

"I--I--burnt it," said Fulk. "I burnt it helping you to light the fire."

It was the truth, yet it was a lie. He had burnt it, that Violet might not see something in it. Aymer was not at Belthrop. Aymer's name was in the paper.

"How shall I amuse you?" said Violet. "This is my home; I must amuse you. I will play to you one of the airs that Aymer likes. Poor Aymer!"

she added, half to herself.

The gentle, melancholy music of Mendelssohn filled the room from the long unused piano.

"Poor Aymer!" repeated Fulk to himself. Poor Aymer, indeed!

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

At twelve o'clock of the night before his wedding-day, Marese Baskette was galloping, fast as his best thorough-bred could carry him, from Barnham town to The Towers. Barely had he settled himself at his hotel to think over the coming day, than a message summoned him to return. It was a splendid night--warm, still, the sky full of stars, and a faint odour of the hawthorn blossom in the air. The thin mist that Lady Lechester had seen had descended into the hollows, and as Marese rode through it, it reached to his saddle-bow. The horse rushed on, hidden in the cloud that covered the earth; the rider sat above it. Far behind clattered the groom, who had fetched him in hot haste.

"Lady Lechester is lost!" Such was his brief message, and not all Marese's sharp questioning could elicit anything more, for the simple reason that nothing more was known. About eight o'clock she had been seen to leave the house, and the servants took no particular notice of it, expecting her to return in a short time, as she usually did. As she usually did I--this was the first time Marese had heard of the nocturnal walks of his bride. It was a mystery to him: it angered him. A man of plots and stratagems, he was always more or less suspicious of others.

An hour had pa.s.sed, and Lady Lechester did not return. The guests--and they were numerous that night at The Towers--asked for her; the household still kept their mistress's secret, but two ventured out to seek her. They went to the well-known spot, they saw the oak trunk, they heard the roar of the river--but Lady Lechester was not there. An anxious consultation took place; butler, footmen, the upper servants held a whispered discussion. At last the gamekeeper was sent for: if Lady Lechester happened to see him, she would not be annoyed; if she met any of the others, and fancied they had been watching her, it would cost them their places. The guests were put off with various excuses. Time pa.s.sed: the gamekeeper reported the park clear, and not a trace of Lady Agnes. The truth could no longer be concealed. The alarm and excitement among the wedding guests may easily be imagined. All the gentlemen at once put on their hats, and with lanterns and brandy flasks proceeded to search the park in every direction. A man was despatched post-haste on the swiftest horse for the bridegroom. One gentleman rode with him to Barnham, woke up the police, and instructed them to be on the alert, but, if possible, to keep matters quiet. Especially they were to look out for the dog Dando, who was known to have accompanied Lady Agnes, but had not returned.

Marese reached The Towers about one in the morning. During his ride he had mastered his feelings; he had crushed down the superst.i.tious presentiment which warned him that all was in vain. He had not felt so unusually nervous about this marriage for nothing. But he mastered himself. One of his maxims was never to regret the past, but to apply the mind with iron will to make the best of the present. He called the servants, naturally taking the lead, and made them tell him all they knew. Then for the first time Lady Agnes' strange visits to "The Pot"

became known; and at once the gloomiest forebodings filled the minds of the guests. She was drowned; she had fallen down "The Pot." The idea grew and grew, till it became the one belief. Marese himself could not doubt it. It was a strange and solemn conclave they held, at that hour of the night, in the hall at The Towers, Marese standing in the midst, his face pale but composed, the guests crowding round him, the servants coming up one by one to be examined. The great clock at The Towers tolled two, and there stepped silently into the room a stranger, plainly dressed, but remarkably upright, with an air of authority--the Superintendent of police from Barnham. A silence followed his entrance.

He marked it, and said that he had brought drags to search the river-- was there a boat anywhere to be obtained?

There was no boat. The Ise ran so swift and was so shallow at ordinary times, and lay so deep down between its banks, that no one cared to keep a boat. The nearest known was a little punt four miles down the river, where it enlarged into a small lake. A man was despatched to borrow it, and pole it up the rapid stream; he could not reach "The Pot," work as hard as he might, under three hours. All the gentlemen and not a few of the ladies, too excited to sit quietly within, went with the Superintendent across the park to "The Pot," and watched the drags used.

The Superintendent asked them to stand back a moment while he examined the ground round the mouth of the funnel. He did so carefully; the gra.s.s had left no mark of a footstep, there was not a trace of a struggle, not a sc.r.a.p of dress hanging to a twig, or a broken ornament.

Then the drags were dropped down the strange funnel into the roaring water, and under the quiet stars the wedding guests gathered in a circle, watching the police as they searched the cave in vain. Neither drag nor pole could detect anything at the bottom; the light of the strongest bull's-eye failed to show any trace that a body had fallen down that narrow crevice; no stones or earth recently dislodged, not a particle of dress or shawl here either.

By this time the ladies were tired, and shivered in the early morning breeze; they retired, but the gentlemen, greatly excited, stayed and a.s.sisted to fish the river Ise downwards for miles. The body would surely be carried with the current: but no, not a trace. The bright sun of the glorious May morning found them still at the mournful task. This was the wedding morning. The thrushes burst into song; the cuckoo flew over with his merry cry; dewdrops glittered like gems upon the bushes, and the lovely May bloom scented the breeze. A wedding morn indeed!-- but where was the bride? More than one glanced for a moment from the turbid river up to the deep azure of the sky, and the natural thought that followed need not be described. They met the punt at last--but it was useless. The man who poled it up had kept a close look out; nothing had floated by.

"We shall not find it," said the Superintendent, "till the flood subsides."

Even yet there was one hope as they walked sadly back to The Towers: the dog Dando--where was he? It was reasonable to think that if Lady Lechester had fallen into the river, the dog would presently return to The Towers. If he did not return, there was still hope that she had wandered in some other direction, or had met with an accident--sprained her ankle, or broken her leg in the woods, perhaps. This idea had occurred to the Superintendent and to Marese long before, and the gamekeeper, with eight or ten willing a.s.sistants, had been searching the woods for hours. As they neared The Towers it was obvious from the group of people talking excitedly before the entrance that something had happened. A policeman came towards them, leading Dando in a leash.

He had but just arrived in a trap from Barnham town. Questions poured out from a hundred lips; it was difficult to get an explanation, but it was understood at last. The Superintendent on leaving Barnham had not omitted to warn the men on their heats in the town to look out for a dog--Lady Lechester's well-known dog--merely as a forlorn hope, never dreaming that Dando would wander thither. But a little after sunrise, perhaps about six o'clock, the dog Dando walked up the high street of Barnham behind a man wearing a grey suit, who knocked at the door of Mr Broughton's private residence. Before the knock was answered the man in the grey suit was in custody, and the dog secured. The man in the grey suit struggled violently--fought like a wild beast, which still further prejudiced the police against him, and was with difficulty handcuffed, manacled, and conveyed to the station-house on a stretcher. No one to look at his slight figure would have thought him capable of such savage battling. He asked perpetually for Mr Broughton, declared that he was not mad--which was strange, as no one had accused him of that failing, and refused to give his name--another trait that looked ill. When asked if he had seen Lady Lechester he denied all knowledge of such a person.

The dog had followed him just as any other dog might. As to the road he had come he was obstinately silent. The police had not waited to waste further inquiries upon him, but hastened to The Towers with the news for their chief.

His face fell immediately. "I fear," he said, "that Lady Lechester is indeed lost. The dog would never have left her unless. However, we have now got a clue."

Marese gave up all hope; yet with his old cool self-possession before he started with the Superintendent for Barnham, he wrote out a telegram and despatched it to Theodore, briefly acquainting him with what had happened, and asking him to be especially agreeable _to that person_-- meaning Violet, whose value as a second string to the bow had risen at once. This telegram was despatched to a dead man: Theodore had been killed the night before in the Sternhold Hall, but in the confusion and the difficulty of at once identifying bodies, no news had been sent to Marese.

With the Superintendent, Marese went into the cell at the police station, and saw Aymer Malet handcuffed and manacled. Poor Aymer, indeed! His hair was rough over his forehead, his cheeks stained with blood from a scratch received in the struggle, his whole look wild in the extreme. He saw Marese Baskette, the murderer, the man who had confined him. Is it to be wondered at that he grew excited? He said nothing, but his face worked, and his teeth ground together. Marese looked at him steadily, almost with a smile. In that moment, swift as it pa.s.sed, he debated upon his best course. Truth, or what he called truth, was the safest, although it would save Aymer's life.

"I know this man," he said. "He is a lunatic; he has escaped from my cousin's asylum at Stirmingham. He is very dangerous: without a doubt, this is the guilty party."

Aymer denied it. All his efforts were to make people believe that he was not mad. As yet he had no conception of the darker shadow hanging over him: his one idea was, that he had been pursued and captured--that he should be sent back to the asylum. Therefore he had refused to give his name, or to describe the road by which he had come to Barnham. This very mistake increased the suspicion against him of a knowledge of Lady Lechester's disappearance. It will now be understood why Fulk burnt the paper that Violet might not read it, and why The Place was dark and cheerless when they reached it. These events had happened just before they arrived.

Marese never lost his presence of mind for a moment, not even when he heard of Theodore's awful death. Turn the mind to the present, was his maxim: do the best with it you can. His one concern was the disappearance of Violet: still he felt certain that he should be able to trace her. At present, the one thing needful was to crush Aymer Malet.

He held that enemy now in the hollow of his hand: he should "taste his finger," as the Orientals say.

The magistrates on hearing the evidence at once made out a warrant, and Aymer was remanded, while the search went on for the body, which still eluded all search. Upon the third day, however, some important evidence turned up, and it was thought best to take it in the presence of the prisoner. Aymer was in consequence led into the large apartment used for such purposes at the police station, still wearing the handcuffs, for Marese had industriously spread the belief that he was a dangerous lunatic. The general public were not admitted; but a few gentlemen were present, and among these was Mr Broughton, who at once recognised Aymer, rough as his present appearance wan, and came forward and spoke to him. Aymer asked him to defend him, and Broughton, to his credit, said he would. To his credit, for his interest in the Lechester estates was large.

The magistrates seeing so respectable a solicitor as Mr Broughton taking an interest in the prisoner, consulted, and to Marese's intense disgust offered to allow the prisoner half an hour to confer with his attorney. In that brief period poor Aymer had to relate his confinement and his escape. Broughton listened attentively; then he said--

"Your story is strange, almost incredible; still you are in a position where nothing will do you much good but public opinion. My usual advice would be to reserve your defence; my present advice to you is to tell the Bench exactly what you have told me, only much more fully. There are no reporters admitted; but I will see that your statement is published. I believe you myself. If the public show any signs of believing you, the prosecutors will withdraw. It is your only chance; for, to be candid, the evidence is terribly against you."

They returned to the justice-room. The first witness called was the policeman who had detected Aymer and the dog in the street. He described Aymer as walking very fast, and dodging from house to house as if trying to escape notice. This was point Number 1 against him. Then came the evidence as to his furious struggle with the police. One constable could barely make himself understood; a blow straight from the shoulder had knocked a tooth out, and his voice sounded hollow and indistinct. Such a violent resistance obviously indicated a guilty conscience. This was point Number 2 against him. Next it was stated, and stated with perfect truth, that the prisoner had refused to give his name, his place of residence, or any information about himself; and that, finally, he had totally denied even so much as knowing that there was such a person as Lady Lechester. He had tried to conceal his ident.i.ty in every way, and had deliberately told an untruth, for after living so long at World's End, how could he have failed to know Lady Lechester? This was point Number 3. Then he gave a very vague, unsatisfactory account of how the dog had followed him. He declared that the dog was a strange dog to him--that he had never seen it before.

Now this must be also a wilful falsehood. Point Number 4. But the darkest evidence of all was reserved to the last. There was brought into the room an "iron-witted" ploughboy, with a shock head of light hair, small eyes, heavy jowl, and low forehead--the very cla.s.s of witness most to be dreaded, for nothing on earth can make them understand that it is possible for them to be mistaken.

The ploughboy, Andrew Hornblow by name, told his story straightforwardly enough. He said that he had been to the "Shepherd's Bush" that fateful evening, after work; that he had a pint and a half of ale, but was not any the worse for liquor. That at about half-past seven, or a little earlier, he left the "Shepherd's Bush" inn to return to the farmhouse where he slept. He went across the fields and Downs, and his path led him over a section of the park. As he pa.s.sed a fir copse he heard some one playing on a tin whistle in a most peculiar way. He was curious: to see who it was, and got into the copse. The moment his footsteps were heard the whistle stopped; but pushing aside the boughs, he caught a glimpse of a tallish man, in a grey suit--a dirty-grey suit--who seemed anxious to avoid observation, and plunged into the dark recesses of the copse. He didn't think much of it at the time; but it so happened that the spot where he had seen the man was within a hundred yards of "The Pot;" and talking of the disappearance of Lady Lechester to his master, the fact had got to the knowledge of the police. Had he seen that man since? Not till he had come into the room; and he pointed at the prisoner, who indeed wore a grey suit, somewhat travel-stained and frayed in places, as if from pa.s.sage through hedges or woods.

Mr Broughton cross-examined this witness at great length, and with his accustomed shrewdness--but in vain, the ploughboy was certain the prisoner was the man. All that could be got from him was, that he had not distinctly seen the face of the man in the copse, but he was tallish, and wore a dirty-grey suit. This established the fact that the prisoner was near about the spot, where Lady Lechester had disappeared somewhere within half an hour of that mysterious event.

Point Number 6 was still more convincing. Upon the prisoner being searched, there was found upon him a tin whistle. The whistle was produced, and was of a peculiar construction: when blown, it gave a singular sound, more musical than the ordinary whistle. It was covered with sketches--apparently engraved with a sharp tool--of dogs, some of them very spirited and faithful outline representations. It was well known that the prisoner was a good draughtsman. The only point that remained to be established was the death of Lady Lechester. The body had not been found.

Upon this evidence the police very properly asked for a remand till the body was discovered.

Mr Broughton immediately applied for bail.

The Bench asked upon what grounds, and this gave Aymer an opportunity to tell his tale. Remember, that all this time Marese Baskette was sitting side by side with the magistrates, who naturally felt for his position, and treated him with exceptional courtesy.

When Aymer began, Marese objected on the ground that the prisoner was a lunatic escaped from Stirmingham Asylum, and that these wild statements, if they got into print, would do him harm. The Bench a.s.sured him that nothing the prisoner--whose wild appearance proved the condition of his mind--could say would prejudice him in their estimation, and as there were no reporters present nothing could get abroad. It was better to let the prisoner tell his tale; he might inadvertently disclose the fate of poor Lady Lechester. It was true that the prisoner being a lunatic would escape the extreme penalty of the law, but it was very desirable to learn all that could be known of poor Lady Agnes. Marese had to be satisfied, and to listen while Aymer, in clear, forcible language, told his story, hinting broadly at Marese's complicity in the death of Jason Waldron, and describing the manner in which he had been trapped, and his escape. The Bench listened with an incredulous air, as well they might.

The man was evidently mad--quite mad. Finally, Aymer came to his arrival at Belthrop late in the afternoon of the day after he had got out of the asylum. Finding Violet was not at Hannah Bond's, and greatly alarmed, he was at a loss what to do. To go back to Stirmingham was extremely dangerous for fear of re-capture, and he hesitated for a while. At last, after partaking of refreshment given to him by old Hannah, he had started for Barnham with the intention of calling on Mr Broughton and taking his advice. Halfway to Barnham it had occurred to him that perhaps Violet after all was at The Towers, and he diverged from his course and approached the mansion, as he supposed, about one in the morning. He saw a number of people about and in commotion, and afraid of being recognised and captured altered his mind again, and turned to go to Barnham across the Downs. In doing so he admitted that he had pa.s.sed near "The Pot," but not at the time stated by the ploughboy--half-past seven in the evening--but half-past one in the morning. As he walked through the gra.s.s he saw something glistening, and picked up the tin whistle found upon him. He should not have taken the trouble to carry it away had it not been for the curious figures on it, which, being a light night, he could just distinguish. As he came up the side of the Downs, just as he pa.s.sed The Giant's Ring--i.e., a circle of stones set on edge--some ancient monument--he was overtaken by the dog Dando, who jumped and fawned upon him with delight as an old friend, and followed him to Barnham where he was captured by the police.

He had resisted them because he thought they were under orders to return him to the asylum. The dog Dando limped a little, and he had noticed that his back showed signs of a severe recent beating. Hannah Bond could prove that he did not leave Belthrop till nearly or quite eight, and it was impossible for him to get to "The Pot," ten miles, in less than three hours, across a rough country. His dress was dirty and torn because he had walked quite twenty miles when arrested, and pa.s.sed through several coppices. Upon this Mr Broughton asked for bail, and offered himself in any sum they might name. But the Bench could not get over the fact of the asylum--the prisoner was a dangerous lunatic; even if his story was true he was a lunatic. No; the prisoner was removed to his cell pending the discovery of the body of Lady Lechester. All that Broughton could do was to order his carriage and set out for Belthrop to find Hannah Bond.

Poor Aymer. It was Violet he thought of still. But events press so quickly, it is impossible to pause and a.n.a.lyse his emotion. The next day about noon, Mr Broughton came into the cell with a grave look upon his face, and carrying a large parcel in his hand. Aymer begged him to tell him the truth at once. Mr Broughton told him that first the body of Lady Lechester had been found. A more careful search by boat near "The Pot" had discovered it. Instead of being carried down by the current, an eddy at the cave had thrown it up against the course of the stream a few yards, and lodged it behind a boulder. There were no marks of violence: she had simply been drowned. Secondly, he had been to Belthrop, and found Hannah Bond's cottage shut up, the old lady gone, and not a trace of her to be found, though he had searched the villages for miles round. Thirdly, the book parcel in his hand had been to London to Aymer's address there, and had been returned to him, Aymer having left instructions that his letters should be sent to Mr Broughton. Upon removing the outer wrapper, there was the name and address of Aymer Malet, Esq, written in the handwriting of the dead Lady Lechester.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Fulk had a difficult game to play. In the first place, his motions were restricted by the dread of Marese's emissaries: he could only go out at night. He wished to preserve Violet from a knowledge of Aymer's misfortune, and yet to go to work himself to release his friend. The first thing to do was to get Hannah Bond to The Place, for clearly Violet could not remain there alone with him. Knowing the country well, he had no difficulty on the night after their arrival--the very night after the preliminary examination of Aymer Malet--in finding his way to Belthrop. He explained the circ.u.mstances to Hannah, who at once packed up a few things, and walked back with him over the Downs to The Place, without awakening one of her neighbours. This was how Hannah Bond disappeared.

Fulk's knowledge of the circ.u.mstances under which Aymer had been arrested was very meagre, but on the third day the _Barnham Chronicle_ came out, and Hannah got him a copy. In it was a full, almost verbatim, account of the preliminary examination, furnished, in fact, by Mr Broughton. Over this paper Fulk spent the greater part of the night thinking. He shut himself up in a room at The Place on the pretence that he had letters to write, and studied the report, line for line and word for word. After an hour or two, his eye became irresistibly attracted by a little paragraph in small type, evidently added at the last moment before going to press. It was but a few lines, announcing that the dog Dando had again disappeared from The Towers. He had been chained up carefully as was supposed, but he had gone in the night.

This little paragraph fixed Fulk's attention. He tried to follow the dog's motions. Why, when Lady Lechester fell down "The Pot," did not the dog return to The Towers? Why did he turn up at The Giant's Ring, with a limp in one leg, as if from a kick, and his back bearing marks of a severe beating? How came that odd and peculiar whistle in the gra.s.s-- how came there to be two men in grey, one at half-past seven, the other at half-past one? The ploughboy had heard a peculiar whistling. By degrees the conviction forced itself into his mind that the other than in grey--the half-past seven man--must have been no other than his cousin Odo. All the facts answered to such a theory. A tallish man, playing upon a tin whistle; the dog--the dog was of the very breed that Odo had such a fancy for. The beating--doubtless the dog had been attracted by Odo, but had refused to obey him, and had been kicked and thrashed till he ran off, and crossed Aymer's path. The Giant's Ring had actually been one of Odo's favourite haunts before he was confined.

It was a wild and desolate spot. Fulk saw it all now clearly.

Obviously Odo was still lingering about, perhaps trying to find the whistle he had dropped--obviously Odo had stolen the dog Dando from the The Towers a second time. If he could find Dando, he could find Odo; and Odo found, then Aymer's release was a matter of time only. Fulk meditated, and at last resolved upon his course--he would visit the haunts which he knew Odo used to favour. But Odo was a strong and powerful man, endowed with singular physical strength, Fulk was little, and by no means strong. Art must conquer Nature. Fulk prepared a cord with a noose, the use of which he had learnt years and years before in a trip to South America. It was a la.s.so, in fact.

Then followed an anxious time. Violet grew more and more restless.