by Ellen Wood
“Oh, but you know she was so lovely, poor thing! One can but pity her; can we, Lady Andinnian?”
“I know nothing of it,” spoke Lucy, in so chafed a tone that Karl turned to look at her.
“My opinion is, that the King should have taken half the bowl,” said Miss Blake. “That would have been even justice, Mrs. Panton.”
“Well, well, judge it as you will, Fair Rosamond was very beautiful; and her fate was shocking. Of course the Queen was incensed; naturally: and the crime of poisoning in those days was, I suppose, looked upon as no crime at all. I have always wished the Queen had been lost in the maze and the poison spilt.”
“Suppose we get lost in this one!”
It was Miss Lloyd who spoke, hurriedly and somewhat anxiously. It brought most of them around her.
“There is no danger here, is there? Sir Karl, you know the way out, I suppose?”
Karl evaded the question. “If the worst come to the worst, we can set on and shout,” he observed.
“But don’t you know the clue? Is there not a clue? There must be!”
“I see nothing of the kind,” returned Karl. “You forget that I am almost a stranger in the neighbourhood. We shall be all right Don’t fear.”
How Lucy despised him for his deceit! She felt that he must have the clue: why else need he let himself within the gate with his key — at least, with any purpose of finding his way further in after it? Miss Blake caught her eye; and Lucy turned away, sick at heart, from the compassion Miss Blake’s glance wore.
Sir Karl’s “Don’t fear” had been reassuring, and they dispersed about the Maze and lost themselves in it, very much as Miss Blake had once done. Mr. Cattacomb kept asking questions about the mistress of the Maze: why she lived there alone, where her husband was: for all of which Sir Karl could have struck him. He, Karl, would have contrived to keep them from the boundaries near the house: but they were as nine to one, and went whither they would: and, as had been Miss Blake’s case, they got within view of it at last “What a pretty place!” was the involuntary exclamation from more than one.
It did look pretty: pretty and very cheerful. The windows of the house were open; the door of the porch was fastened back, as if to invite entrance. Not a sign or symptom existed of there being any cause for concealment So far good, and Karl felt satisfied. But, as his eyes went ranging far and wide in their longed-for security, there was no doubt that he somewhere or other caught sight of his imprudent brother; for his face changed to an ashy paleness, and he groaned in spirit.
“Adam is surely mad,” was his mental cry.
Ann Hopley, who had probably been waiting about, stepped up at this moment, and asked with much civility if they would like to walk in-doors and rest. Sir Karl, looking at his friends, as if for acquiescence in his denial, declined. “We have no right to intrude,” he whispered: and the General said so too.
“This might really do for a Rosamond’s Bower!” cried Mrs. Panton. “It is a sweetly pretty place.”
The lawn was level as a bowling-green; the flowers and shrubs surrounding it were well-kept, fragrant, and blooming. Mounted on a ladder, nailing some branches against a wall that probably belonged to a tool-house, was the toothless old gardener, his knees swollen and bent, his white smock frock rolled up around him.
“That’s the gardener at his work, I suppose?” observed the General, whose eyes were dim.
“Yes, that’s Hopley,” said Karl.
“What d’ye call his name, Sir Karl?”
“Hopley. He is the woman’s husband.”
“I had a servant once of that name when I was quartered at Malta. A good servant he was, too.”
“That man yonder looks ill,” remarked Mrs. Panton. “I fancy he is subject to rheumatism,” said Sir Karl. “How is your husband?” he enquired of Ann Hopley.
“Pretty middling, sir, thank you,” she answered. “He is getting in years you see, gentlefolks, and is not as strong as he was.”
“Will you be so good as precede us through the Maze and let us out,” said Karl to her. “I think it is time we went,” he added to the others: “we have seen all there is to see.”
Ann Hopley, key in hand, went winding through the Maze, in and out of the numberless paths. It seemed to those following her that they only went round and round — just as it had seemed to Miss Blake that former day; and it took some time to get through it The Reverend Mr. Cattacomb called it “a pilgrimage.”
She was crafty, that faithful woman. Just as she had led Miss Blake a needlessly round-about way, so she led them now. Had she taken them direct through, who knew but they might have caught some inkling of the duel While opening the gate, General Lloyd would have put half-a-crown into her hand. She would not take it.
“I’d rather not, sir; I’ve done nothing to merit it. Our mistress pays us both well. Thank you, sir, all the same.”
“A good, respectable, honest servant, that,” remarked the General, slipping the money into his pocket again.
Crossing the road from the Maze, the party came right in view of Clematis Cottage and Mr. Smith, who was leaning over the gate of it and staring with all his might. He raised his hat to the ladies generally, and then accosted Sir Karl, saying he had taken the plan, asked for, to the Court.
“Thank you,” replied Karl.
“Who is that man?” cried Captain Lloyd with some energy as they went on. “I am sure I know him.”
“His name’s Smith,” replied Karl. “He is a sort of agent on my estate.”
“Smith — Smith! I don’t recollect the name. His face is quite familiar to me, though. Where can I have seen it?”
Karl longed in his heart to ask whether the face had ever belonged to the name of Salter; but he did not dare. There had been a peculiar expression in Mr. Smith’s eyes as he spoke to him just now, which Karl had read rightly — he was sure Smith wanted to speak to him privately. So, after the rest had entered the home gates, he turned back. The agent had not stirred from his place.
“What have those people been doing there, Sir Karl?” he asked, with a peremptory action of his hand towards the Maze.
Karl explained. He did not dare do otherwise. Explained in full.
“Curious fools!” cried the man angrily. “Well, no harm seems to have been done, sir. Seeing you all come out of the gate, I could not believe my eyes, or imagine what was up.”
“I fancied you wished to speak to me, Mr. Smith.”
“And so I do, Sir Karl. The letters were late this morning — did you know it? They’ve only just been delivered. Some accident, I suppose.”
“I only know that none came to Foxwood Court this morning.”
“Just so. Well, Sir Karl, I’ve had one; ten minutes ago. I wrote to make inquiries about that paragraph in the newspaper, and this letter was the answer to mine. It is as I thought. There’s nothing known or suspected at all at headquarters; neither at Scotland Yard nor Portland Island. It was the work of the penny-a-liner, hang him! — just an invention, and nothing else.”
“To whom did you write?”
“Well, that’s my business, and I cannot tell you. But you may rely upon what I say, Sir Karl, and set your mind at rest. I thought you’d like to know this, sir, as soon as possible.”
“Thank you,” replied Karl.
He went back to his guests, his brain busy. Was this true, that Smith said? Who then was Smith that he could get this information? Or, was it that Smith was saying it for a purpose?
CHAPTER II.
Recognised.
THE buff-coloured blinds were down before Mr. Burtenshaw’s windows in the Euston Road, shutting out the glare of the afternoon sun, and throwing an unwholesome kind of tint over the rooms. In one of them, the front room on the first floor, sat the detective himself. It was indeed a kind of office as well as a sitting-room: papers strewed the table; pigeon holes and shelves, all filled, were ranged along the walls.
Mr. Burtenshaw had a complicated case in hand at that period.
Some fresh information had just come in by a private letter, and he was giving the best attention of his clear mind to it: his head bent over the table; his hands resting on the papers immediately before him. Apparently he arrived at some conclusion: for he nodded twice and then began to fold the papers together.
The servant-maid, with the flaunty cap tilted on her head, entered the room, and said to her master that a gentleman had called and was requesting to see him.
“Who is it?” asked Mr. Burtenshaw.
“He gave no name, sir. It’s the same gentleman who called twice or thrice in one day about a fortnight ago: the last time late at night. He’s very nice-looking, sir; might be known for a gentleman a mile off.”
The detective carried his thoughts back, and remembered. “You can show him up,” he said. “Or — stay, Harriet,” he suddenly added, as the girl was leaving the room. “Go down first of all and ask the gentleman his name.”
She went as desired; and came up again fixing her absurd cap on its tottering pinnacle.
“The gentleman says, sir, that you don’t know him by name, but his solicitors are Messrs. Plunkett and Plunkett.”
“Ay. Show him up,” said Mr. Burtenshaw. “He has a motive for withholding his name,” mentally added the detective.
The reader need not be told that it was Karl Andinnian who entered. The object of his visit was to get, if possible, some more information respecting Philip Salter.
Day by day and week by week, as the days and weeks went on, had served to show Karl Andinnian that his brother’s stay at the Maze was growing more full of risk. Karl and Mrs. Grey, conversing on the matter as opportunity occurred, had nearly set it down as a certainty that Smith was no other than Salter. She felt sure of it Karl nearly so. And he was persuaded that, once Smiths influence could be removed, Adam might get safely away.
The question ever agitating Karl’s brain, in the midnight watches, in the garish day, was — what could he do in the matter? — how proceed in it at all with perfect security? The first thing of course was to ascertain that the man was Salter; the next to make a bargain with him: “You leave my brother free, and I will leave you free.” For it was by no means his intention to deliver Salter up to justice. Karl had realized too keenly the distress and horror that must be the portion of a poor fugitive, hiding from the law, to denounce the worst criminal living.
The difficulty lay entirely in the first step — the identification of Smith with Salter. How could he ascertain it? He did not know. He could not see any means by which it might be accomplished with safety. Grimley knew Salter — as in fact did several of Grimley’s brotherhood — but, if he once brought Grimley within a bird’s-eye view of Smith (Smith being Salter) Grimley would at once lay his grasping hands upon him. All would probably be over then: for the chances were that Salter in revenge would point his finger to the Maze, and say “There lives a greater criminal than I; your supposed dead convict, Adam Andinnian.”
The reader must see the difficulty and the danger. Karl dared not bring Grimley or any other of the police in contact with Smith; he dared not give them a clue to where he might be found: and he had to fall back upon the uncertain and unsatisfactory step of endeavouring to track out the identity himself.
“If I could but get to know Burtenshaw’s reason for thinking Salter was in England,” he exclaimed to himself over and over again, “perhaps it might help me. Suppose I were to ask Burtenshaw again — and press it on him? Something might come of it. After all, he could but refuse to tell me.”
Just as Karl, after much painful deliberation, had determined to do this, there arrived at Foxwood a summons for his wife. Colonel Cleeve was attacked with sudden illness. In the first shock of it, Mrs. Cleeve feared it might prove fatal, and she sent for Lucy. Karl took her to Winchester and left her, and at once took up his own abode for a few days in London. The Court had none too much attraction for him as matters stood, and he did not care to be left to entertain Miss Blake. So long as his wife stayed away, he meant to stay.
The following afternoon saw him at the detective’s. Mr. Burtenshaw had thought his unknown visitor looking ill before: he looked worse now. “A delicate man with some great care upon him,” summed up the officer to himself.
Karl, opening his business, led up to the question he had come to ask. Would Mr. Burtenshaw confide to him the reason for his supposing Philip Salter to be still in England? At first Mr. Burtenshaw said No; that it could not, he imagined, concern him or any one else to hear it. Karl pleaded, and pleaded earnestly.
“Whatever you say shall be kept strictly sacred,” he urged. “It cannot do harm to any one. I have a powerful motive for asking it.”
“And a painful one, too,” thought the detective. Karl was leaning forward in his chair, his pale face slightly flushed with inward emotion, his beautiful grey eyes full of eager entreaty, and a strange sadness in their depths.
“Will you impart to me, sir, your motive for wishing to know this?”
“No, I cannot,” said Karl. “I wish I could, but I cannot.”
“I fancy that you must know Salter’s retreat, sir — or think you know it: and you want to be assured it is he before you denounce him,” spoke the detective, hazarding a shrewd guess.
Karl raised his hand to enforce what he said, speaking solemnly. “Were I able to put my finger this moment upon Salter, I would not denounce him. Nothing would induce me. You may believe me when I say that, in asking for this information, I intend no harm to him.”
The detective saw how true were the words. There was something in Karl Andinnian strangely attractive, and he began to waver.
“It is not of much consequence whether I give you the information or whether I withhold it,” he acknowledged, giving way. “The fact is this: one of our men who knew Salter, thought he saw him some three or four months ago. He, our man, was on the Great Western line, going to Bath; in passing a station where they did not stop, he saw (or thought he saw) Salter standing there. He is a cool-judging, keen-sighted officer, and I do not myself think he could have been mistaken. We followed up the scent at once, but nothing has come of it.”
Karl made no answer: he was considering. Three or four months ago? That was about the time, he fancied, that Smith took up his abode at Foxwood.
Previous to that, he might have been all over England, for aught Karl could tell.
“Just before that,” resumed the detective, “another of the men struck up a cock-and-bull story that Salter was living in Aberdeen. I forget the precise reason he had for asserting it. We instituted inquiries: but, like the later tale, they resulted in nothing. As yet, we have no sure clue to Salter.”
“That is all you know!” asked Karl.
“Every word. Has the information helped you?”
“Not in the least degree.”
There was nothing else for Karl to wait for. His visit had been a fruitless one. “I should have liked to see Grimley once again,” he said as he rose. “Is he in town?”
“Grimley is in the house now. At least, he ought to be. He is engaged in a case under me, and was to be here at three o’clock for instructions. Will you see him?”
“If you please.”
It had occurred to Karl more than once that he should like to describe Smith accurately to Grimley, and ask whether the description tallied with Salter’s. Tie could do it without affording any clue to Smith or his locality.
Mr. Burtenshaw rang, and told the maid to send up Grimley, if he had come. In obedience to this, Grimley, in his official clothes, appeared, and another officer with him.
“Oh, I don’t want you just yet, Watts,” said Mr. Burtenshaw. “Wait down stairs.”
“Very well, sir,” replied the man. “I may as well give you this, though,” he added, crossing the room and placing a small box the size of a five-shilling-piece on the table. Mr. Burtenshaw looked at it curiously, and then slipped it into the drawer at his left hand.
“From Jacob, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.”
The man left the room. Karl, after a few preliminary words with Grimley, gave an elaborate and close description of Smith’s figure and features. “Is it like Salter?” he asked.
“If it isn’t him, sir, it’s his twin brother,” was Grimley’s emphatic answer. “As to his looking forty, it is only to be expected. Nothing ages a man like living a life of fear.”
Karl remembered how Adam had aged and was ageing, and silently acquiesced. He began to think he saw his way somewhat more clearly; that the man at Foxwood was certainly Salter. Handing over a gratuity to Grimley, and taking leave of Mr. Burtenshaw, he departed, leaving the other two talking of him.
“He has dropped upon Salter,” remarked Grimley.
“Yes,” said Mr. Burtenshaw. “But he does not intend to deliver him up.”
“No!” cried the other in amazement “Why not, sir?”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Burtenshaw. “He said he had no intention of the kind — and I am sure he has not. It seemed to me to be rather the contrary — that he wants to screen him.”
“Then he told you, sir, that he had found Salter?”
“No, he did not. We were speaking on supposition.”
“Who is this gentleman, sir?”
“I don’t know who he is. He keeps his name from me.”
Mr. Grimley felt anything but satisfied with the present aspect of the affair. What right had this stranger, who wanted to know all about Salter, to refuse to denounce him? Once more he asked Mr. Burtenshaw if he did not know who he was, but the latter repeated his denial. During the discussion, the man Watts entered the room again, and heard what passed. He looked at Mr. Burtenshaw.
“Are you speaking of the gentleman just gone out, sir? I know him.”
“Why, who is he?” asked Mr. Burtenshaw, who had taken out the little box again, and was opening it.