"Something has happened to my aunt as well; I know that; I know she is dead. That's why I was afraid to go upstairs. She is lying there in the darkness, on the landing above. Whoever killed my uncle will have killed her too."
The groom cleared his throat. "She may have run out onto the moor," he said; "she may have run for help along the road..."
"No," whispered Mary, "she would never have done that. She would be with him now, down in the hall there, crouching by his side. She is dead. I know she is dead. If I had not left her this would never have happened."
The man was silent. He could not help her. After all, she was a stranger to him, and what had passed beneath the roof of the inn while she had lived there was no concern of his. The responsibility of the evening lay heavy enough upon his shoulders and he wished that his master would come. Fighting and shouting he understood; there was sense in that; but if there had really been a murder, as she said, and the landlord lying dead there, and his wife too--why, they could do no good in staying here like fugitives themselves, crouching in the ditch, but were better off and away, and so down the road to sight and sound of human habitation.
"I came here by the orders of my mistress," he began awkwardly; "but she said the squire would be here. Seeing as he is not..."
Mary held up a warning hand. "Listen," she said sharply. "Can you hear something?"
They strained their ears to the north. The faint clop of horses was unmistakable, coming from beyond the valley, over the brow of the further hill.
"It's them," said Richards excitedly; "it's the squire; he's come at last. Watch now; we'll see them go down the road into the valley."
They waited, and when a minute had passed the first horseman appeared like a black smudge against the hard white road, followed by another, and another. They strung out in a line, and closed again, traveling at a gallop; while the cob who waited patiently beside the ditch pricked his ears, and turned an enquiring head. The clatter drew near, and Richards in his relief ran out upon the road to greet them, shouting and waving his arms.
The leader swerved, and drew rein, calling out in surprise at the sight of the groom. "What the devil do you do here?" he shouted, for it was the squire himself, and he held up his hand to warn his followers behind.
"The landlord is dead, murdered," cried the groom. "I have his niece here with me in the trap. It was Mrs. Bassat herself who sent me out here, sir. This young woman had best tell you the story in her own words."
He held the horse while his master dismounted, answering as well as he could the rapid questions put to him by the squire, and the little band of men gathered around him too, pressing for news; some of them dismounting also, and stamping their feet on the ground, blowing upon their hands for warmth.
"If the fellow has been murdered, as you say, then, by God, it serves him right," said Mr. Bassat; "but I'd rather have clapped irons on him myself for all that. You can't pay scores against a dead man. Go on into the yard, the rest of you, while I see if I can get some sense out of the girl yonder."
Richards, relieved of responsibility, was surrounded at once and treated as something of a hero, who had not only discovered the murder, but had tackled the author of it single-handed; until he reluctantly admitted that his part in the adventure had been small. The squire, whose mind worked slowly, did not realize what Mary was doing in the trap, and considered her as his groom's prisoner.
He heard with astonishment how she had walked the long miles to North Hill in the hopes of finding him, and, not content with that, must return again to Jamaica Inn. "This is altogether beyond me," he said gruffly. "I believed you to be in conspiracy with your uncle against the law. Why did you lie to me, then, when I came here earlier in the month? You told me you knew nothing."
"I lied because of my aunt," said Mary wearily. "Whatever I said to you then was for her sake only, nor did I know as much then as I do now. I am willing to explain everything in a court of law should it be necessary; but if I tried to tell you now you would not understand."
"Nor have I the time to listen," replied the squire. "You did a brave thing in walking all that way to Altarnun to warn me, and I shall remember it in your favor; but all this trouble could have been avoided, and the terrible crime of Christmas Eve prevented, had you been frank with me before.
"However, all that for later. My groom tells me that you have found your uncle murdered, but beyond that you know nothing of the crime. Had you been a man you should go with me now to the inn, but I will spare you that. I can see you have endured enough." He raised his voice and shouted for the servant. "Take the trap up to the yard, and stay beside it with the young woman while we break into the inn"; and, turning to Mary: "I must ask you to wait in the yard, if your courage permits you; you are the only one among us who knows anything of the matter, and you were the last to see your uncle alive." Mary nodded her head. She was nothing more now than a passive instrument of the law, and must do as she was bidden. He had at least spared her the ordeal of going once more into the empty inn and looking upon the body of her uncle. The yard, that had lain in shadow when she came, was now the scene of activity; horses stamped on the cobblestones, and there was the shaking, ringing sound of bit and bridle, and there were the footsteps and the voices of the men, topped by the squire's gruff word of command.
He led the way round to the back, at Mary's direction, and presently the bleak and silent house lost its shuttered air. The window in the bar was flung open, and the windows of the parlor; some of the men went upstairs and explored the empty guest-rooms above, for these windows were unbarred also, and opened to the air. Only the heavy entrance-door remained shut; and Mary knew that the landlord's body lay stretched across the threshold.
Someone called sharply from the house, and was answered by a murmur of voices, and a question from the squire. The sounds came plainly now through the open parlor window to the yard outside. Richards glanced across at Mary, and he saw by the pallor of her face that she had heard.
A man who stood by the horses, and who had not gone with the others inside the inn, shouted to the groom. "Do you hear what they say?" he said in some excitement. "There's another body there, on the landing upstairs."
Richards said nothing. Mary drew her cloak further around her shoulders and pulled the hood across her face. They waited in silence. Presently the squire himself came out into the yard, and crossed to the trap.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I have bad news for you. Perhaps you expected it."
"Yes," said Mary.
"I don't think she suffered at all. She must have died at once. She was lying just inside the bedroom at the end of the passage. Stabbed, like your uncle. She could have known nothing. Believe me, I am very sorry. I wish I could have spared you this." He stood by her, awkward and distressed, and repeated again that she could not have suffered, that she had not known, but was killed instantly; and then, seeing that Mary was better left alone, and he could not help her, he stamped back across the yard to the inn.
Mary sat motionless, shrouded in her cloak; and she prayed in her own way that Aunt Patience would forgive her, and find peace now, wherever she should be, and that the dragging chains of life would fall away from her, leaving her free. She prayed also that Aunt Patience would understand what she had tried to do; and above all that her mother would be there, and she would not be alone. These were the only thoughts that brought her a measure of consolation, and she knew if she went over in her mind again the story of the last few hours she would come to the one and only accusation: had she not left Jamaica Inn, Aunt Patience might not have died.
Once again, though, there came a murmur of excitement from the house, and this time there was shouting, and the sound of running feet, and several voices raised in unison; so that Richards ran to the open parlor window, forgetting his trust in the excitement of the moment, and thrust his leg over the sill. There was a crash of splintering wood, and the shutters were torn away from the window of the barred room, which no one, apparent
ly, had entered up to now. The men were tearing away the barricade of wood, and someone held a flare to light the room; Mary could see the flame dance in the draft of air.
Then the light vanished, and the voices died away, and she could hear the sound of footsteps tramping to the back of the house; and then round the corner to the yard they came, six or seven of them, led by the squire, holding among them something that squirmed and wriggled, and fought for release with hoarse bewildered cries. "They've got him! It's the murderer!" shouted Richards, calling to Mary; and she turned, brushing aside the hood that covered her face, and looked down upon the group of men who came to the trap. The captive stared up at her, blinking at the light they flashed in his eyes, his clothes cobweb-covered, his face unshaven and black: and it was Harry the pedlar.
"Who is he?" they shouted. "Do you know him?" And the squire came round in front of the trap and bade them bring the man close, so that she could see him well. "What do you know of this fellow?" he said to Mary. "We found him in the barred room yonder lying on some sacks, and he denies all knowledge of the crime."
"He was of the company," said Mary slowly, "and he came to the inn last night and quarreled with my uncle. My uncle had the better of him, and locked him up in the barred room, threatening him with death. He had every reason to kill my uncle, and no one could have done it but he. He is lying to you."
"But the door was locked upon him; it took three of us or more to break it down from the outside," said the squire. "This fellow had never been from the room at all. Look at his clothes; look at his eyes, dazzled still by the light. He's not your murderer."
The pedlar glanced furtively from one to the other of his guards, his small mean eyes darting to right and left, and Mary knew at once that what the squire had said was no more than the truth; Harry the pedlar could not have committed the crime. He had lain in the barred room since the landlord put him there, over twenty-four hours ago. He had lain there in the dark, waiting for release, and during the long hours someone had come to Jamaica Inn and gone again, his work completed, in the silence of the night.
"Whoever did it knew nothing of this rascal, locked in the room yonder," continued the squire, "and he's no use to us as a witness, as far as I can see, for he heard and saw nothing. But we'll have him in jail for all that, and hang him too, if he deserves it, which I'll be bound he does. But he shall turn King's evidence first, and give us the names of his companions. One of them has killed the landlord for revenge, you may depend on that, and we'll track him down if we set every hound in Cornwall on his heels. Take this fellow to the stable, some of you, and hold him there; the rest come back to the inn with me."
They dragged the pedlar away, who, realizing that some crime had been discovered and suspicion might possibly rest upon him, found his tongue at last and began to blab his innocence, whining for mercy and swearing by the Trinity, until someone cuffed him to silence and threatened him with the rope, there and then, above the stable door. This silenced him, and he fell to muttering blasphemies beneath his breath, turning his rat's eyes now and again to Mary, who sat above him in the trap, a few yards away.
She waited there, her chin in her hands and the hood fallen away from her face, and she neither heard his blasphemies nor saw his furtive narrow eyes, for she remembered other eyes that had looked upon her in the morning, and another voice that had spoken calm and cold, saying of his brother, "He shall die for this."
There was the sentence, flung carelessly, on the way to Launceston fair: "I have never killed a man yet"; and there was the gypsy woman in the market square: "There's blood on your hand; you'll kill a man one day." All the little things she would forget rose up again and clamored against him: his hatred of his brother, his streak of callous cruelty, his lack of tenderness, his tainted Merlyn blood.
That, before all things, would betray him first. Like to like. One of a kind. He had gone to Jamaica Inn as he had promised, and his brother had died, as he had sworn. The whole truth stared up at her in ugliness and horror, and she wished now that she had stayed, and he had killed her too. He was a thief, in the night he had come and was gone again. She knew that the evidence could be built against him piece by piece, with herself as witness; it would be a fence around him from which there would be no escape. She had only to go now to the squire and say, "I know who it is that has done this thing," and they would listen to her, all of them; they would crowd around her like a pack of hounds panting for the chase, and the trail would lead them to him, past Rushyford, and through Trewartha Marsh, to Twelve Men's Moor. He slept there now perhaps, forgetful of his crime and caring not at all, stretched on his bed in the lonely cottage where he and his brother had been born. When morning came he would be gone, whistling perhaps, throwing his legs across a horse, and so away and out of Cornwall forever, a murderer like his father before him.
In her fancy she heard the clop of his horse upon the road, far distant in the quiet night, beating a tempo of farewell; but fancy became reason, and reason became certainty, and the sound she heard was not the dream thing of her imagination but the live tapping of a horse upon the highway.
She turned her head and listened, nerves strung now to the limit; and the hands that held the cloak around her were clammy and cold with sweat.
The sound of the horse drew nearer still. He was trotting at a steady, even pace, neither hurried nor slow, and the rhythmic jogging tune that he played on the road had echo in her throbbing heart.
She was not alone now as she listened. The men who guarded the pedlar murmured to one another in low tones, and looked towards the road, and the groom Richards, who was with them, hesitated a moment, and then went swiftly to the inn to call the squire. The beat of the horse's hoofs rang loud now as he climbed the hill, sounding like a challenge to the night so silent and still, and as he topped the summit and rounded the wall into view the squire came out of the inn, followed by his man.
"Stop!" he called. "In the name of the King. I must ask your business on the road tonight."
The horseman drew rein, and turned into the yard. The black riding-cape gave no clue to his identity, but when he bowed and bared his head, the thick halo of hair shone white under the moon, and the voice that spoke in answer to the squire was gentle and sweet.
"Mr. Bassat of North Hill, I believe," he said, and he leaned forward in his saddle, with a note in his hand. "I have a message here from Mary Yellan of Jamaica Inn, who asks my help in trouble; but I see by the company assembled here that I have come too late. You remember me, of course; we have met before. I am the vicar of Altarnun."
16
Mary sat alone in the living-room at the vicarage and watched the smoldering turf fire. She had slept long, and was now rested and refreshed; but the peace for which she craved had not yet come to her.
They had been kind to her and patient; too kind perhaps, coming so sudden and unexpected after the long strain; and Mr. Bassat himself, with clumsy, well-meaning hands, patted her on the shoulder as he would a hurt child, and said to her in his gruff kind way, "Now you must sleep, and forget all you have gone through, and remember it's behind you now, and over. I can promise you that we shall find the man who killed your aunt soon, very soon, and he shall hang at the next Assizes. And when you are a little recovered from the shock of these last few months, you shall say what you would like to do, and where you would like to go."
She had no will of her own; they could make decisions for her; and, when Francis Davey offered his home for shelter, she accepted meekly and without feeling, conscious that her listless word of thanks savored of ingratitude. Once more she knew the humility of being born a woman, when the breaking down of strength and spirit was taken as natural and unquestioned.
Were she a man, now, she would receive rough treatment, or indifference at the best, and be requested to ride at once perhaps to Bodmin or to Launceston to bear witness, with an understanding that she should find her own lodging and betake herself to the world's end if she wished when all questio
ns had been asked. And she would depart, when they had finished with her, and go on a ship somewhere, working her passage before the mast; or tramp the road with one silver penny in her pocket and her heart and soul at liberty. Here she was, with tears ready to the surface and an aching head, being hurried from the scene of action with smooth words and gestures, a nuisance and a factor of delay, like every woman and every child after a tragedy.
The vicar had driven her himself in the trap--with the squire's groom following behind on his horse--and he at least had the gift of silence, for he questioned her not at all, nor murmured sympathy to be both wasted and ignored, but drove swiftly to Altarnun, and arrived there as his church clock struck one.
He roused his housekeeper from the cottage nearby, the same woman that Mary had spoken with in the afternoon, and bade her come with him to the vicarage to prepare a room for his guest, which she did at once, without chattering or exclaiming in wonder, bringing the aired linen from her own home to lay on the bed. She kindled a fire in the grate and warmed a rough woolen nightdress before it, while Mary shed her clothes, and when the bed was ready for her, and the smooth sheets turned back, Mary allowed herself to be led to it as a child is led to a cradle.
She would have closed her eyes at once but for an arm suddenly around her shoulders, and a voice in her ear, "Drink this," persuasive and cool, and Francis Davey himself stood beside the bed, with a glass in his hand, and his strange eyes looking into hers, pale and expressionless.
"You will sleep now," he said, and she knew from the bitter taste that he had put some powder in the hot drink which he had brewed for her, and that he had done this in understanding of her restless, tortured mind.
The last that she remembered was his hand upon her forehead and those still white eyes that told her to forget; and then she slept, as he had bidden her.
It was nearly four in the afternoon before she woke, and the fourteen hours of sleep had done the work that he intended, turning the edge of sorrow and blunting her to pain. The sharp grief for Aunt Patience had softened, and the bitterness too. Reason told her that she could not put the blame upon herself: she had done only what her conscience had commanded her to do. Justice had come first. Her dull wit had not foreseen the tragedy; there lay the fault. There remained regret, and regret could not bring Aunt Patience back again.
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