We did not; and again I breathed. The room was not only empty; the window was fastened on the inside; and an accumulation of the loose fittings of the house, evidently for sale to the incoming tenant, seemed to explain the locked door. At least I said so, and the explanation was received better than it deserved. We now proceeded, all four of us (abandoning system in our unsuccess), to search the cellar; but our man was not there, and I began to tell myself he was not in the house at all. Thus, as my companions lost their heads and rushed to the attics as one man, I found mine and elected to remain below. The room we had broken into was the one I chose to wait in; for I had explored no other, and wherever else he might be, the robber was not here. Judge then of my feelings when I heard him moving under my feet. Horror glued me where I stood, unable to call out, unable to move; my eyes fast as my feet to the floor, watching a board that moved in the dim light of a candle-end found and lit by one of the constables at our first inspection. The board moved upward; a grimy face appeared through the aperture; it was that of my old schoolfellow, Deedes major.
“For God’s sake, Beetle, help me out of this!” he whispered.
“Deedes!” I could only murmur; and again, “Deedes!”
“Yes, yes,” said he impatiently. “Think of the old school — and tell me where they are. Are they gone?”
“Only upstairs. What on earth’s at the bottom of this, Deedes?” I asked him sternly.
“A mistake — a rotten mistake!” said he. “They gave chase to me shortly after I left you. I got in here, but the one chap daren’t follow me alone, and I ripped up this floor and got under while he was whistling away outside. I spotted a loose board by treading on it, and that bit of luck’s just saved my bacon.”
“Has it? I’m not so sure,” said I, walking to the door and listening. “What do they want you for?”
“Would you believe it? For sticking up the bank — when I was out at my lunch! Did you ever hear such rot?”
“I don’t know; if you’re an innocent man, why not behave like one? Why hide — they’re coming down!” I broke off, hearing them. “Stop where you are! You can never get out in time!”
In the candle-light his face gleamed very pale between the blotches of dust and dirt; but I fancied it brightened at my involuntary solicitude.
“You will help me?” he whispered eagerly. “For the sake of the good old school,” he wheedled, playing still upon the soft spot I had discovered to him earlier in the night. It was a soft spot still. I remembered him in the fifteen and the eleven; then overcame the memory, and saw him for what he was now.
“Hush!” said I from the door. “I want to listen.”
“Where are they now?”
“Looking on the next landing.”
“Then now’s my time!”
“Not it,” said I, putting my back against the door.
He rose waist-high through the floor, his dark eyes blazing, his right hand thrust within his coat; and I knew what was in the hand I could not see.
“Pot away!” I jeered. “You haven’t done murder yet. You daren’t do it now!”
“I dare do anything,” he growled. “But you — you’ll never go and give a chap away, Beetle?”
“You’ll give yourself away if you don’t get under that this instant. They’re coming down, man! Stop where you are, and I’ll see you later; try to get out of it, and I promise you you’re a gone coon!”
He disappeared without a word, and I ran out to salute my comrades in the hall.
“Well,” cried I, “what luck?”
“None at all,” replied the sergeant angrily. “I could have sworn it was this house, but I suppose we must try the next. How we’ve missed him is more than I can fathom!”
A slaty sky denoted imminent dawn as we emerged from the house; the chill of dawn was in the air, and there was I in nothing but pyjamahs. One of the constables remarked upon my condition, and the sergeant (good man) made me a pathetic speech of thanks, and recommended me my bed. If they needed further assistance they could get it next door, but he was afraid his man had made a longer flight than that. And indeed when I returned to the spot, in my clothes, an hour later, there was no sign of the police in the road; and I was enabled to slip into the empty house unobserved.
I got in through an open window, broken near the hasp, by which the fugitive himself had first effected an entry. In the early morning light the place looked different and very dirty; and as I entered the room with the burst door, I thought it also very still. I tore up the loose boards, and uttered an exclamation which resounded horribly in the desolation. Deedes was gone. I poked my head below the level of the floor, but there was no sign of him underneath. As I raised myself, however, a step just sounded on the threshold, and there he stood in his socks, smiling, with a revolver in his hand.
For one instant I doubted his intention; the next, the weapon dropped into his pocket, and his smile broadened as though he had read my fear.
“No fear, Beetle,” said he; “it’s not for you. I couldn’t be sure it was you, that was all. So you’re as good as your word! I hardly expected you so soon — if at all!”
“Do you remember my word?” said I meaningly, for his coolness irritated me beyond measure. His very face and hands he had contrived to cleanse at some of the taps. He might have been in bed all night and neglected nothing but his chin and his hair. And this was the man of whom a whole colony would talk this morning, for whom a whole colony would hunt all day.
“Your word?” said Deedes. “You promised to help me.”
“I didn’t. I said I’d see you again. If I help you it will be on very definite terms.”
“Half-profits, eh? Well, I’m agreeable, and glad you haven’t forgotten our conversation of last night.”
“And I’m glad,” I retorted, “to see you make no more bones about your guilt. Where’s the money? I want the lot.”
“You’re greedy, Beetle!”
“Confound you!” I cried, “do you think I want to compromise myself by being found here with you? For two pins I’ll leave you to get out of this as best you can. You heard me? I want that twenty thousand pounds. I want it to pay back into the bank. Then I’ll do what I can, but not until.”
I saw his dark eyes blazing as they had blazed in the candle-light. He was between me and the door, and I knew that for any gain to him I never should have left that room alive. At least I believed so then; I believe it still; but at that moment his manner changed. He gave in to me, and yet maintained a coolness and a courage in his peril, a dignity in his defeat, which more than fascinated me. They made me his slave. I could have screened him all day for the pure æsthetic joy of contemplating those fearless, dare-devil eyes and hearing that cynical voice of unaffected ease. But the money I insisted on having.
“That’s all very well,” said he; “but I haven’t got it here. I planted it.”
“Tell me where.”
“I can’t; I could never make it plain; it’s not an obvious place at all. Still I accept your terms. Bring me a change of clothes to-night — I daren’t face daylight — and I give you my word you shall have the stuff to take back to the bank. I’ve made a bungle of it; thought of it for weeks, and bungled it after all! It was that Barwon business tempted me. I wasn’t ready, but couldn’t resist the big haul. All I want now is to get out of it with a whole skin. And by Jove! I see the way. You go to old I’Anson with the money, and get him to say he’ll see me. Then I’ll tell him it was all a practical joke — done for a bet — anything you like — and if the thing don’t altogether blow over, well, I’ll get off lighter than I deserve. The old chap will stand by me at all events; he’s got his reasons.”
I refrained from asking what they were. I fancied I knew, and hoped I did not. But Deedes demanded more than a silent consent to his plans.
“Look here: are you on, Beetle, or are you not?”
“Can I trust you?”
“I give you my word upon it; till yesterday it was the w
ord of an honest man.”
“You want a rig-out as different as possible from what you have on?”
“Yes, and some whiskers or something if you can possibly get hold of any. Your friends are great on theatricals. Ask to look at their props.”
“You’ll pay back every penny, and plead a practical joke?”
“My dear chap, it’s my only chance. I see no other way out of it, Beetle. I’m fairly cornered; only help me to pay back before I’m caught, and at least I’ll get off light.”
“Very well,” said I. “On those conditions I will help you. Where were you when I came in?”
“In the cellar; it’s safer and also more comfortable than under the floor.”
“Then I advise you to go back there, for I’m off. If I’m found here we shall be run in together.”
He detained me, however, a moment more. It was to put a letter in my hand, a stout missive addressed in pencil to myself.
“You see I’ve been busy while you were gone,” he said, in a tone quite shy for him. “Read that after your breakfast. It may make you think less ill of me. And, for the love of Heaven, deliver the enclosures!”
I undertook to do so; my interest, however, was as yet confined to the outer envelope, a clean piece of stationery, never used before.
“Upon my word,” said I, “you have come prepared. No doubt you have provisions too?”
Deedes produced a packet and a flask. “Sandwiches and whisky,” said he, “in case of need!”
I looked hard at him; it may have been my imagination, but for once I thought he changed colour.
“Deedes,” said I, “you’re a cold-blooded, calculating villain; but I confess I can’t help admiring you.”
“And trusting me about to-night?” he added, with some little anxiety.
“I wouldn’t trust you a bit,” I replied, “if it weren’t to your own interest to do everything you’ve said you’ll do. Luckily it is. There’s a hue and cry for you in this town. Every hole and corner will be watched but the bank. You can’t hope to get away; and by far your wisest plan is the one you’ve hit upon, to return the money and throw yourself on your manager’s mercy.”
“It is,” he answered, with his foot upon the cellar stairs; “and you bet old I’Anson won’t make it harder than necessary for me. It’s a clever idea. I should never have thought of it but for you. Old man, I’m grateful; it’s more than I deserve!”
And I left him with my hand aching from a grip as warm as that of any honest man; and what was stranger yet, the incredible impression of a catch in my villain’s voice. Here, however, I felt I must be mistaken, but my thoughts were speedily distracted from the anomaly. I had a milkman to dodge as I made my escape from the garden of the empty house. And half-way down the road I met none other than the poor discomfited sergeant of the night.
“Been having another look at the house,” said I, with the frankness that disarms suspicion.
“See anything fresh?”
“Nothing.”
“You wouldn’t. I don’t believe the beggar was in the house two minutes. Still I thought I’d like to have a squint myself by daylight; and there’ll be little damages to repair where we come in. So long, mister; you done your best; it wasn’t your fault.”
He was gone. I looked after him with my heart in my mouth. I watched him to the gate. Would he come forth alone — or alive? I saw the last of the sergeant — and fled.
III
I cannot pretend to describe my feelings of the next few hours; nor would the result be very edifying even if I succeeded in any such attempt. I trembled for the criminal’s security, I quaked for the sergeant’s life, but most of all I quaked and trembled for my own skin and my own peace of mind. If the sergeant captured Deedes, my flagrant complicity must inevitably leak out, and I too should have to stand my trial as accessory after the fact. If, on the other hand, Deedes murdered the sergeant, and himself escaped, the guilt of blood would gnaw my soul for ever. Thus I tossed between a material Scylla and a spiritual Charybdis, in the trough of my ignoble terrors. Every footstep in the gravel was that of some “stern-faced man” come to lead me thence “with gyves upon my wrists.” Every cry from the street proclaimed the sergeant’s murder in the empty house.
It was impossible to conceal my condition from my friends. With that partial and misleading candour, therefore, at which I was becoming so vile an adept, I told them of my recognition of the man whose name was now in every mouth; of our midnight conversation in my room; of the police-whistle, and my subsequent adventures in the constables’ company. There I stopped; and the tale gained me a kudos, and exposed me to a fusillade of questions, which were by no means the lightest punishments of that detestable day. Again and again I felt certain I had betrayed the guilty knowledge that lay so heavy on my heart. I was quite convinced of it about eleven in the forenoon, when my host came among us perspiring from a walk.
“I’ve just been down to the police-station,” said he, “but they haven’t got him yet. The sergeant tells me — —”
“Which sergeant?” I shouted.
“The man you were with last night. He has been speaking about you, Mr. Bower — speaking very highly of your behaviour last night. Nor was he the only one; it’s all over the town — Girls, we have all woke up famous for having such a hero in our house!”
Famous! a hero! I thought of the names which might justly replace those words any moment. And in a sudden irresistible panic I fled the room; my flight being attributed (I afterwards discovered) to my “charming English modesty,” with odious comparisons which I need not add.
Before this the young ladies of the house had been regaling me with a good many facts, and perhaps a little unintentional fiction, concerning the Geelong branch of Mr. Deedes’s colonial career. It was a record highly characteristic of the Deedes who had been so popular and so infamous at school. He had won every tournament at the tennis-courts; he danced better than any man in Geelong. He had proposed to a rich Melbourne widow twice his age; had broken many hearts, including that of the blue-eyed daughter of the bank; and been seen at one dance, “well, in a state which made it impossible for us to know him any more.” I had gathered from Deedes that my friends were none of his; now I was in possession of the cause; but the item affecting the Miss I’Anson whose face I had just seen the day before, and yet remembered vividly, was the item that focused my interest. I asked what sort of a girl she was. The account I received was not a little critical, yet reasonably charitable save on the part of one young lady who said nothing at all. She it was also who had said least against Deedes himself; and of this one I thought when in my panic I had broken loose from the bevy and fled to the farthest and most obscure corner of the kitchen-garden. Was she also in love with the attractive scamp? Could that Miss I’Anson with the blue eyes be in the same helpless case? Deedes had hinted at the manager’s well-grounded good-will towards himself. Could there be, not a secret but a private understanding between Deedes and the daughter? He had given me a letter and spoken of enclosures which I had undertaken to deliver. Did one of them contain words of love for the sad eyes I could not forget? And if so, was I bound to keep my promise?
The letter itself I had quite forgotten in the stress of a later anxiety now happily removed. But I opened and read it among the gooseberries and the cabbages; and was myself so revolted, alike by the purport and the tone of this communication, that I have no intention of reproducing it here. It had, however, the merit of brevity; and this was the point. He had been an idiot about girls all his life. There were two at least in Geelong of whom he wished, whatever happened to him, to take a tender leave. He had written two notes, but had left them undirected, because it was not fair that I should know the names. Would I put the three-cornered note on the ledge under the eaves, at the back of the pavilion at the tennis-courts, and midway between the ladies’ and the gentlemen’s entrances? I should probably be going there that afternoon (as a matter of fact I was going), and it would take
no trouble, but only a little care, to do this when nobody was near. But he would be immensely grateful to me; and still more so if I would slip the square note into the biggest book in a certain pew of the church nearest the Western Beach. He gave the number of the pew, and the exact bearings of the church, which was always open.
I pass over the thing that incensed me: his taking it so coolly for granted, before it had been granted, that I would help him in his abominable dilemma, and so connive in his felony. I had done so; but had I read this letter in his presence, I flattered myself I had shown him a stiffer front. As it was, however, these undirected billets-doux did undoubtedly recruit and renew my interest in the whole intrigue; and, promise or no promise, I should have carried out the rascal’s instructions to the letter. He had counted upon the inquisitive side of my character — shall I say of human nature? — and he had counted not in vain. It was a stroke of genius on his part to leave the notes unaddressed.
I looked at my watch. We were still on the right side of noon. Going indoors for my hat, I craved permission to run to my rooms and change into flannels before lunch; and Deedes himself could not have hit upon a craftier pretext. It exempted me from escort, and thus cleared my path to the church, whither I proceeded without delay. The pew was easily found; I profaned a fat hymn-book with the square note, and crept out like the stealthy creature I was become. The church had been empty when I entered it. Coming out, however, I met a man in the porch. He was a huge, sandy-bearded, rolling walker, wearing a suit of blue serge and a straw-hat. As we passed, I saw his eye upon me; a moment later, this caused me to return upon my tracks, in order to see he did not meddle with Deedes’s note. I was too late; I caught him sidling awkwardly from the pew, with the little square missive held quite openly between his fingers; and I awaited him in the porch with sensations upon which I need not dwell, beyond confessing that he appeared to me to grow six inches with every rolling stride.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 421