Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “I’ll go with very great pleasure, John,” he said, “if you’ll tell them to saddle a horse for me.”

  “To be sure; you shall have Red Rover, my covert hack. We’ll go round to the stables, and see about him at once.”

  The truth of the matter is, Talbot Bulstrode was very well pleased to hunt up the detective himself, rather than that John Mellish should execute that errand in person; for it would have been about as easy for the young squire to have translated a number of the Sporting Magazine into Porsonian Greek, as to have kept a secret for half an hour, however earnestly entreated, or however conscientiously determined to do so.

  Mr. Bulstrode had made it his particular business, therefore, during the whole of that day, to keep his friend as much as possible out of the way of every living creature, fully aware that Mr. Mellish’s manner would most certainly betray him to the least observant eyes that might chance to fall upon him.

  Red Rover was saddled, and, after twenty loudly-whispered injunctions from John, Talbot Bulstrode rode away in the evening sunlight. The nearest way from the stables to the high-road took him past the north lodge. It had been shut up since the day of the trainer’s funeral, such furniture as it contained left to become a prey to moths and rats; for the Mellish servants were a great deal too superstitiously impressed with the story of the murder to dream of readmitting those goods and chattels which had been selected for Mr. Conyers’ accommodation to the garrets whence they had been taken. The door had been locked, therefore, and the key given to Dawson, the gardener, who was to be once more free to use the place as a storehouse for roots and matting, superannuated cucumber-frames, and crippled garden-tools.

  The place looked dreary enough, though the low sun made a gorgeous illumination upon one of the latticed windows that faced the crimson west, and though the last leaves of the roses were still lying upon the long grass in the patch of garden before the door, out of which Mr. Conyers had gone to his last resting-place. One of the stable-boys had accompanied Mr. Bulstrode to the lodge in order to open the rusty iron gates, which hung loosely on their hinges, and were never locked.

  Talbot rode at a brisk pace into Doncaster, never drawing rein until he reached the little inn at which the detective had taken up his quarters. Mr. Grimstone had been snatching a hasty refreshment, after a weary and useless perambulation about the town, and came out with his mouth full to speak to Mr. Bulstrode. But he took very good care not to confess that since three o’clock that day neither he nor his ally had seen or heard of Mr. Stephen Hargraves, or that he was actually no nearer the discovery of the murderer than he had been at eleven o’clock upon the previous night, when he had discovered the original proprietor of the fancy waistcoat, with buttons by Crosby, Birmingham, in the person of Dawson, the gardener.

  “I’m not losing any time, sir,” he said, in answer to Talbot’s inquiries; “my sort of work’s quiet work, and don’t make no show till it’s done. I’ve reason to think the man we want is in Doncaster; so I stick in Doncaster, and mean to, till I lay my hand upon him — unless I should get information as would point farther off. Tell Mr. Mellish I’m doing my duty, sir, and doing it conscientious; and that I shall neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep more than just as much as’ll keep human nature together, until I’ve done what I’ve set my mind on doing.”

  “But you’ve discovered nothing fresh, then?” said Talbot; “you’ve nothing new to tell me?”

  “Whatever I’ve discovered is neither here nor there yet a while, sir,” answered the detective, vaguely. “You keep your heart up, and tell Mr. Mellish to keep his heart up, and trust in me.”

  Talbot Bulstrode was obliged to be content with this rather doubtful comfort. It was not much, certainly, but he determined to make the best of it to John Mellish.

  He rode out of Doncaster, past the “Reindeer” and the white-fronted houses of the wealthier citizens of that prosperous borough, and away upon the smooth high-road. The faint shimmer of the pale early moonlight lit up the tree-tops to right and left of him as he left the suburb behind, and made the road ghostly beneath his horse’s feet. He was in no very hopeful humor, after his interview with Mr. Grimstone, and he knew that hungry-eyed members of the Doncaster constabulary were keeping stealthy watch upon every creature in the Mellish household, and that the slanderous tongues of a greedy public were swelling into a loud and ominous murmur against the wife John loved. Every hour, every moment, was of vital importance. A hundred perils menaced them on every side. What might they not have to dread from eager busybodies, anxious to distinguish themselves, and proud of being the first to circulate a foul scandal against the lovely daughter of one of the richest men upon the Stock Exchange? Hayward, the coroner, and Lofthouse, the rector, both knew the secret of Aurora’s life; and it would be little wonder if, looking at the trainer’s death by the light of that knowledge, they believed her guilty of some share in the ghastly business which had terminated the trainer’s service at Mellish Park.

  What if, by some horrible fatality, the guilty man should escape, and the truth never be revealed. For ever and for ever, until her blighted name should be written upon a tombstone, Aurora Mellish must rest under the shadow of this suspicion. Could there be any doubt that the sensitive and highly-strung nature would give way under the unendurable burden? that the proud heart would break beneath the undeserved disgrace? What misery for her! and not for her alone, but for every one who loved her, or had any share in her history. Heaven pardon the selfishness that prompted the thought, if Talbot Bulstrode remembered that he would have some part in that bitter disgrace; that his name was allied, if only remotely, with that of his wife’s cousin; and that the shame which would make the name of Mellish a by-word must also cast some slur upon the escutcheon of the Bulstrodes. Sir Bernard Burke, compiling the romance of the county families, would tell that cruel story, and, hinting cautiously at Aurora’s guilt, would scarcely fail to add, that the suspected lady’s cousin had married Talbot Raleigh Bulstrode, Esq., eldest son and heir of Sir John Walter Raleigh Bulstrode, Baronet, of Bulstrode Castle, Cornwall.

  Now, although the detective had affected a hopeful and even mysterious manner in his brief interview with Talbot, he had not succeeded in hoodwinking that gentleman, who had a vague suspicion that all was not quite right, and that Mr. Joseph Grimstone was by no means so certain of success as he pretended to be.

  “It’s my firm belief that this man Hargraves has given him the slip,” Talbot thought. “He said something about believing him to be in Doncaster, and then the next moment added that he might be farther off. It’s clear, therefore, that Grimstone does n’t know where he is; and in that case, it’s as likely as not that the man’s made off with his money, and will get away from England in spite of us. If he does this—”

  Mr. Bulstrode did not finish the sentence. He had reached the north lodge, and dismounted to open the iron gate. The lights of the house shone hospitably far away beyond the wood, and the voices of some men about the stable-gates sounded faintly in the distance; but the north lodge and the neglected shrubbery around it were as silent as the grave, and had a certain phantom-like air in the dim moonlight.

  Talbot led his horse through the gates. He looked up at the windows of the lodge as he passed, half involuntarily; but he stopped with a suppressed exclamation of surprise at the sight of a feeble glimmer, which was not the moonlight, in the window of that upper chamber in which the murdered man had slept. Before that exclamation had wellnigh crossed his lips the light had disappeared.

  If any one of the Mellish grooms or stable-boys had beheld that brief apparition, he would have incontinently taken to his heels, and rushed breathless to the stables, with a wild story of some supernatural horror in the north lodge; but Mr. Bulstrode, being altogether of another mettle, walked softly on, still leading his horse, until he was well out of earshot of any one within the lodge, when he stopped and tied the Red Rover’s bridle to a tree, and turned back toward the north gates, leaving the corn-fe
d covert hack cropping greedily at dewy hazel-twigs, and any green meat within his reach.

  The heir of Sir John Walter Raleigh Bulstrode crept back to the lodge almost as noiselessly as if he had been educated for Mr. Grimstone’s profession, choosing the grassy pathway beneath the trees for his cautious footsteps. As he approached the wooden paling that shut in the little garden of the lodge, the light which had been so suddenly extinguished reappeared behind the white curtain of the upper window.

  “It’s queer!” mused Mr. Bulstrode, as he watched the feeble glimmer; “but I dare say there’s nothing in it. The associations of this place are strong enough to make one attach a foolish importance to anything connected with it. I think I heard John say the gardeners keep their tools there, and I suppose it’s one of them. But it’s late, too, for any of them to be at work.”

  It had struck ten while Mr. Bulstrode rode homeward, and it was more than unlikely that any of the Mellish servants would be out at such a time.

  Talbot lingered by the wicket-gate, irresolute as to what he should do next, but thoroughly determined to see the last of this late visitor at the north lodge, when the shadow of a man flitted across the white curtain — a shadow even more weird and ungainly than such things are — the shadow of a man with a humpback!

  Talbot Bulstrode uttered no cry of surprise; but his heart knocked furiously against his ribs, and the blood rushed hotly to his face. He never remembered having seen the softy, but he had always heard him described as a humpbacked man. There could be no doubt of the shadow’s identity; there could be still less doubt that Stephen Hargraves had visited that place for no good purpose. What could bring him there — to that place above all other places, which, if he were indeed guilty, he would surely most desire to avoid? Stolid, semi-idiotic as he was supposed to be, surely the common terrors of the lowest assassin, half brute, half Caliban, would keep him away from that spot. These thoughts did not occupy more than those few moments in which the violent beating of Talbot Bulstrode’s heart held him powerless to move or act; then, pushing open the gate, he rushed across the tiny garden, trampling recklessly upon the neglected flower-beds, and softly tried the door. It was firmly secured with a heavy chain and padlock.

  “He has got in at the window, then,” thought Mr. Bulstrode. “What, in Heaven’s name, could be his motive in coming here?”

  Talbot was right. The little lattice-window had been wrenched nearly off its hinges, and hung loosely among the tangled foliage that surrounded it. Mr. Bulstrode did not hesitate a moment before he plunged head foremost into the narrow aperture through which the softy must have found his way, and scrambled as he could into the little room. The lattice, strained still farther, dropped, with a crashing noise, behind him; but not soon enough to serve as a warning for Stephen Hargraves, who appeared upon the lowest step of the tiny corkscrew staircase at the same moment. He was carrying a tallow candle in a battered tin candlestick in his right hand, and he had a small bundle under his left arm. His white face was no whiter than usual, but he presented an awfully corpse-like appearance to Mr. Bulstrode, who had never seen him or noticed him before. The softy recoiled, with a gesture of intense terror, as he saw Talbot; and a box of lucifer-matches, which he had been carrying in the candlestick, rolled to the ground.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Mr. Bulstrode, sternly; “and why did you come in at the window?”

  “I warn’t doin’ no wrong,” the softy whined, piteously; “and it a’n’t your business neither,” he added, with a feeble attempt at insolence.

  “It is my business. I am Mr. Mellish’s friend and relation; and I have reason to suspect that you are here for no good purpose,” answered Talbot. “I insist upon knowing what you came for.”

  “I have n’t come to steal owght, anyhow,” said Mr. Hargraves; “there’s nothing here but chairs and tables, and ‘t a’n’t loikely I’ve come arter them.”

  “Perhaps not; but you have come after something, and I insist upon knowing what it is. You would n’t come to this place unless you’d a very strong reason for coming. What have you got there?”

  Mr. Bulstrode pointed to the bundle carried by the softy. Stephen Hargraves’ small, red-brown eyes evaded those of his questioner, and made believe to mistake the direction in which Talbot looked.

  “What have you got there?” repeated Mr. Bulstrode; “you know well enough what I mean. What have you got there, in that bundle under your arm?”

  The softy clutched convulsively at the dingy bundle, and glared at his questioner with something of the savage terror of some ugly animal at bay, except that in his brutalized manhood he was more awkward, and perhaps more repulsive, than the ugliest of lower animals.

  “It’s nowght to you, nor to anybody else,” he muttered sulkily. “I suppose a poor chap may fetch his few bits of clothes without bein’ called like this?”

  “What clothes? Let me see the clothes.”

  “No, I won’t; they’re nowght to you. They — it’s only an old weskit as was give me by one o’ th’ lads in th’ steables.”

  “A waistcoat!” cried Mr. Bulstrode; “let me see it this instant. A waistcoat of yours has been particularly inquired for, Mr. Hargraves. It’s a chocolate waistcoat, with yellow stripes and brass buttons, unless I’m very much mistaken. Let me see it.”

  Talbot Bulstrode was almost breathless with excitement. The softy stared aghast at the description of his waistcoat, but he was too stupid to comprehend instantaneously the reason for which this garment was wanted. He recoiled for a few paces, and then made a rush toward the window; but Talbot’s hands closed upon his collar, and held him as if in a vice.

  “You’d better not trifle with me,” cried Mr. Bulstrode; “I’ve been accustomed to deal with refractory Sepoys in India, and I’ve had a struggle with a tiger before now. Show me that waistcoat.”

  “I won’t.”

  “By the Heaven above us, you shall.”

  “I won’t!”

  The two men closed with each other in a hand-to-hand struggle. Powerful as the soldier was, he found himself more than matched by Stephen Hargraves, whose thick-set frame, broad shoulders, and sinewy arms were almost herculean in their build. The struggle lasted for a considerable time — or for a time that seemed considerable to both of the combatants but at last it drew toward its termination, and the heir of all the Bulstrodes, the commander of squadrons of horse, the man who had done battle with the blood-thirsty Sikhs, and ridden against the black mouths of Russian cannon at Balaklava, felt that he could scarcely hope to hold out much longer against the half-witted hanger-on of the Mellish stables. The horny fingers of the softy were upon his throat, the long arms of the softy were writhing round him, and in another moment Talbot Bulstrode lay upon the floor of the north lodge, with the softy’s knee planted upon his heaving chest.

  Another moment, and in the dim moonlight — the candle had been thrown down and trampled upon in the beginning of the scuffle — the heir of Bulstrode Castle saw Stephen Hargraves fumbling with his disengaged hand in his breast-pocket.

  One moment more, and Mr. Bulstrode heard that sharp metallic noise only associated with the opening of a clasp-knife.

  “E’es,” hissed the softy, with his hot breath close upon the fallen man’s cheek, “you wanted t’ see th’ weskit, did you? but you shan’t, for I’ll sarve you as I sarved him. ‘T a’n’t loikely I’ll let you stand between me and two thousand pound.”

  Talbot Raleigh Bulstrode had a faint notion that a broad Sheffield blade flashed in the silvery moonlight; but at this moment his senses grew confused under the iron grip of the softy’s hand, and he knew little, except that there was a sudden crashing of glass behind him, a quick trampling of feet, and a strange voice roaring some seafaring oath above his head. The suffocating pressure was suddenly removed from his throat; some one or something was hurled into a corner of the little room; and Mr. Bulstrode sprang to his feet, a trifle dazed and bewildered, but quite ready to do battle again.
<
br />   “Who is it?” he cried.

  “It’s me, Samuel Prodder!” answered the voice that had uttered that dreadful seafaring oath. “You were pretty nigh done for, mate, when I came aboard. It a’n’t the first time I’ve been up here after dark, takin’ a quiet stroll and a pipe, before turning in over yonder” — Mr. Prodder indicated Doncaster by a backward jerk of his thumb. “I’d been watchin’ the light from a distance, till it went out suddenly five minutes ago, and then I came up close to see what was the matter. I don’t know who you are, or what you are, or why you’ve been quarrelling; but I know you’ve been pretty near as nigh your death to-night as ever that chap was in the wood.”

  “The waistcoat!” gasped Mr. Bulstrode; “let me see the waistcoat!”

  He sprang once more upon the softy, who had rushed toward the door, and was trying to beat out the panel with his iron-bound-clog; but this time Mr. Bulstrode had a stalwart ally in the merchant-captain.

  “A bit of rope comes uncommon handy in these cases,” said Samuel Prodder, “for which reason I always make a point of carrying it somewhere about me.”

  He plunged up to his elbow in one of the capacious pockets of his tourist peg-tops, and produced a short coil of tarry rope. As he might have lashed a seaman to a mast in the last crisis of a wreck, so he lashed Mr. Stephen Hargraves now, binding him right and left, until the struggling arms and legs, and writhing trunk, were fain to be still.

  “Now, if you want to ask him any questions, I make no doubt he’ll answer ‘em,” said Mr. Prodder, politely. “You’ll find him a deal quieter after that.”

  “I can’t thank you now,” Talbot answered, hurriedly; “there’ll be time enough for that by and by.”

  “Ay, ay, to be sure, mate,” growled the captain; “no thanks is needed where no thanks is due. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yes, a good deal presently; but I must find this waistcoat first. Where did he put it, I wonder? Stay, I’d better try and get a light. Keep your eye upon that man while I look for it.”