by Ellen Wood
Miss Jemima, who was rather fond of a little general flirtation, though she did perhaps favour one swain above all others, resented the slight in her heart. She consoled herself after the manner of the fox when he could not reach the grapes.
“He’s nothing but a bear,” said she, tossing her little vain head as she tripped away in the deepening gloom of the evening. “It is all for the best. We might have chanced to meet Mr. Cattacomb, and then he would have looked daggers at me. Or — my goodness me! — perhaps Aunt Diana.”
Mr. Strange strolled on, revolving the aspect of affairs in his official mind. His next object must be to get to speak to Dr. Cavendish and learn who it really was that he had been to see. Of course it was not absolutely beyond the cards of possibility that the sick man was Hopley. It was not impossible that Mrs. Grey might have some private and personal objection to the calling in again of Mr. Moore; or that the old man had been seized with some illness so alarming as to necessitate the services of a clever physician in preference to those of a general practitioner. He did not think any of this likely, but it might be; and only Dr. Cavendish could set it at rest.
Perhaps some slight hope animated him that he might obtain an immediate interview with Dr. Cavendish on the spot, as he returned from Mrs. Whittle’s cottage. If so, he found it defeated. The gig came back with the two gentlemen in it, and it drove off direct to the village, not passing Foxwood Court at all, or the detective; but the latter was near enough to see it travel along. Mr. Moore was dropped at his own house, and the groom — who had been sent on there — taken up; and then the gig went on to Basham.
“I must see him somehow,” decided the detective— “and the less time lost over it, the better. Of course a man in the dangerously sick state this one is represented to be, cannot make himself scarce as quickly as one in health could; but Salter has not played at hide-and-seek so long to expose himself unnecessarily. He would make superhuman efforts to elude us, and rather get away dying than wait to be taken. Better strike while the iron is hot I must see the doctor to-night.”
He turned back to the station; and was just in time to watch the train for Basham go puffing out.
“That train has gone on before its time!” he cried in anger.
After reference to clocks and watches, it was found that it had gone on before its time by more than a minute. The station-master apologised: said the train was up three or four minutes too early; and, as no passengers were waiting to go on by it, he had given the signal to start rather too soon. Mr. Strange gave the master in return a bit of his mind; but he could not recall the train, and had to wait for the next.
The consequence of this was, that he did not reach Basham until past nine o’clock. Enquiring for the residence of Dr. Cavendish, he was directed to a substantial-looking house near the market-place. A boy in buttons, who came to the door, said the Doctor was not at home.
“I particularly wish to see him,” said Mr. Strange. “Will he be long?”
“Well, I don’t know,” replied the boy, indifferently; who, like the rest of his tribe, had no objection to indulge in semi-insolence when it might be done with safety. “Master don’t never hardly see patients at this hour. None of ’em cares to come at night-time.”
“I am not a patient. My business with Dr. Cavendish is private and urgent I will wait until he comes in.”
The boy, not daring to make objection to this, ushered the visitor into a small room that he called the study. It had one gaslight burning; just enough to illumine the book-shelves and a white bust or two that stood in the comers on pedestals. Here Mr. Strange was left to his reflections.
He had plenty of food for them. That Salter was at the Maze, he felt as sure of as though he had already seen him. Superintendent Game had informed him who Smith the agent had acknowledged himself to be — Salter’s cousin — and stated his own views of the motives that induced his residence at Foxwood. This was an additional thread in the web of belief Mr. Strange was weaving; a confirmatory link that seemed all but conclusive. In the short period that elapsed between his interview with Nurse Chaffen, chez elle, and his run up to London, he had seen his friend Giles, the footman, and by dint of helping that gentleman to trace days back and recall events, had arrived at a fact that could neither be disputed nor controverted — namely, that it could not have been Sir Karl Andinnian who was seen at the Maze by her and the surgeon. On that evening, Sir Karl, his wife, and Miss Blake had gone to a dinner party at a few miles distance. At the self-same minute of time that the event at the Maze took place, they were seated with the rest of the company at the dinner table, Mr. Giles himself standing behind in waiting. This was a fact: and had Miss Blake taken a little trouble to ascertain from Nurse Chaffen which evening it was the mysterious gentleman had presented himself to view, and then recalled the day of the dinner, she would have discovered the fallacy of her belief in supposing him to have been Sir Karl.
Mr. Strange had, however, discovered it, and that was unfortunately more to the purpose. Whatever might be the object of Sir Karl’s private visits to the Maze — and upon that point Mr. Strange’s opinion did not change, and he had laughed quietly over it with the superintendent — it was not Sir Karl who was seen that night. It was a great point to have ascertained: and the detective thought he had rarely held stronger cards at any game of chance than were in his hands now. That Mrs. Grey would prove to be Salter’s sister, he entertained no doubt of.
But the waiting was somewhat weary. Ten o’clock. Unless Dr. Cavendish made his appearance shortly, Mr. Strange would lose the last train, and have the pleasure of walking all the way from Basham. He was standing before one of the busts — the late Sir Robert Peel’s — when the door opened, and there entered a quiet lady-like woman, with cordial manners and a homely face. It was Mrs. Cavendish.
“I am so sorry you should have to wait so long for my husband,” she said. “If I knew where he was gone, I would send to him: but he did not happen to tell me before he went out. Your business with him is of importance, I hear.”
“Yes, madam: of importance to myself. Perhaps he will not be much longer now.”
“I should think not. Will you allow me to send you in a glass of wine?”
He thanked her, but declined it; and she went away again. A short while, and a latch-key was heard in the house door, denoting the return of its master. Some few words were exchanged in the hall between Dr. Cavendish and his wife — and the former entered: a short, quick-speaking man, with grey whiskers.
As a matter so much of course that it hardly needs mentioning, the detective had to be no less crafty in conducting this interview than he was in some other matters. To have said to Dr. Cavendish, “I want from you a description of the patient you were called to see to-day, that I may ascertain whether it be indeed an escaped criminal of whom I am in search,” would have been to close the doctor’s mouth. It was true that he might open his cards entirely and say, “I am Detective Tatton from Scotland Yard, and I require you in the name of the law to give me all the information you can about the patient;” and, in that case it was possible that the doctor might deem himself obliged to give it. But he preferred to keep that master-stroke in hand, and try another way.
He possessed pleasant manners, and had a winning way with him — it has been already said; he spoke as a gentleman. Sitting down close to the doctor, he began enquiring in an earnest tone after the new patient at the Maze, and spoke so feelingly about patients in general, that he half gained the physician’s heart.
“You are some close friend of the gentleman’s?” observed Dr. Cavendish. And the word “gentleman” set the one great doubt at rest “I am most deeply interested in him,” said the detective: and the unsuspicious doctor never noticed the really sophistical nature of the answer.
“Well, I am sorry to tell you that I think him very ill. I don’t know what they can have been about not to call in advice before.” And in a few short words he stated what disease the symptoms seemed to threaten.
&nbs
p; It startled the detective. He was sufficiently acquainted with surgery to know that it was one of difficulty and danger. —
“Surely, Dr. Cavendish, he is not threatened with that?”
“I fear he is.”
“Why, it will kill him! It is not curable, is it?”
“Rarely, if ever, when once it has certainly set-in.”
“And it kills soon.”
“Generally.”
Mr. Strange looked very blank. To hear that his prize might escape him by death — or might die close upon his capture, was eminently unsatisfactory. It would be a termination to the great affair he had never thought of; would tarnish all the laurels in a business point of view: and he was, besides, not a hard-hearted man.
“He is very young for that kind of thing, is he not, doctor?”
“Yes. Rather so.”
“What brings it on, sir, in general?”
“Oh, various causes.”
“Will trouble induce it? — I mean great trouble; anxiety; care?”
“Sometimes. Especially if there should be any hereditary tendency to it in the system.”
“Well, I did not expect to hear this.”
“Are you his brother?” asked the Doctor, seeing how cut-up the visitor looked. “Not that I detect any likeness.”
“No, I am not his brother; or any other relative. Do you consider it a hopeless case, Dr. Cavendish?”
“I have not said that I should not be justified in saying it In fact, I have not yet formed a positive opinion on the case, and cannot do so until I shall have examined further into it. All I say at present is, that I do not like the symptoms.”
“And — if the symptoms turn out to be what you fear; to threaten the malady you speak of — what then?”
“Why then there will be very little hope for him.”
“You are going over to him again, then?”
“Of course. To-morrow. He is not in a state to be left without medical attendance.”
“How long do you think it has been coming on, doctor?”
“I cannot tell you that. Not less than a twelvemonth, if it be what I fear.”
Mr. Strange played with his watch-chain. He wanted the description of the man yet — though, in fact he felt so sure as hardly to need it, only that detectives do not leave anything to chance.
“Would you mind telling me what you think of his looks, Dr. Cavendish?”
“Oh, as to his looks, they are the best part about him. His face is somewhat worn and pallid, but it is a very handsome face. I never saw a nicer set of teeth. His hair and short beard seem to have gone grey prematurely, for I should scarcely give him forty years.”
“He is only five-and-thirty,” spoke the detective, thinking of Salter. And that, as the reader may recall, was also about the age of Sir Adam.
“Only that? Then in looks he has prematurely aged.”
“In his prime, say two or three years ago, he was as good-looking a man as one would wish to see,” observed the detective, preparing to give a gratuitous description of Salter. “A fine, tall, upright figure, strongly-built withal; and a pleasant, handsome, frank face, with fine dark eyes and hair, and a colour fresh as a rose.”
“Ay,” acquiesced the physician: “I only saw him in bed, and he is now much changed, but I should judge that would be just the description that once applied to him. You seem to hint at some great trouble or sorrow that he has gone through: he gives me just that idea. Of what nature was it? — if I may ask.”
“It was trouble that was brought on by himself — and that is always the most trying to bear. As to its nature — you must pardon me for declining to particularise it, Dr. Cavendish, but I am really not at liberty to do so. Do not put the refusal down to discourtesy. It is not yet over: and the chances are that you will certainly hear all about it in a day or two.”
Dr. Cavendish nodded. He assumed the words to imply that the patient himself would enlighten him. As to the detective, his mission was over; and well over. He had learnt all he wanted: what he had suspected was confirmed.
“That beautiful young woman, living alone at the Maze — what relative is she of his?” asked the doctor, as his visitor rose and took up his hat.
“His sister,” was the rather hazardous answer.
“Oh, his sister. Mr. Moore could not make out who the patient was. He thought it might be the husband who had returned. When I asked his name, to write a prescription for the chemist, Mrs. Grey said I might put it in hers — Grey.”
“I thank you greatly for your courtesy, Dr. Cavendish.”
“You are welcome,” said the doctor. “Mind, I have not expressed any certain opinion as to his nonrecovery. Don’t go and alarm him. What I have said to you was said in confidence.”
“You may depend upon me. Good night.”
Mr. Detective Strange had to walk from Basham, for the last train was gone and his return half-ticket useless. Basham police station was nearly opposite the doctor’s, and he stepped in there to leave a message on his way. In the satisfaction his visit had afforded him, he did not at all mind the night-walk: on the morrow, the long-sought-for Salter, who had dodged them so vexatiously, would be in their hands, the prey would have fallen. A satisfaction, however, that was not without alloy, in the damping circumstances that encompassed the man’s state of health. And for that he could but feel compassion.
Midnight was chiming from the clock at Foxwood as he reached the Maze — for he preferred to take that round-about way. Halting at the gate, he looked about and listened for a minute or two. Then he let himself in with his master-key, and went through the labyrinth.
The house lay in silence. All seemed still as the grave. There was no light, no sound, no token of illness inside; no, nor even of inmates. He gently put the said key in the entrance-door to see if it would yield. No: the door was not only locked but bolted and barred. He went to the summer-house, leading up from the underground places, and found the trapdoor there also bolted and barred within. All was as secure as wary hands could make it.
“And it is welcome to remain so until to-morrow,” breathed the detective as he turned to thread his silent steps back through the maze; “but then, Mr. Philip Salter, you are mine. Neither bolts nor bars can save you then.”
And he finally let himself out again at the gate with that ingenious instrument, the key. To be polite, we will apply a French name to it, and call it a passes partout But Dr. Cavendish, reflecting afterwards upon the interview, rather wondered who the stranger was, and whence he had come; and remembered then that he had totally omitted to ask his name.
CHAPTER XV.
Ann Hopley startled.
THE morning sun was chasing the dew from the grass: and the lawn at the Maze, glittering so brightly in the welcome rays, told no tales of the strange feet that had, unbidden and unsuspected, trodden it in the night Mrs. Grey, looking wondrously pretty and delicate in her white morning gown, with her golden hair as bright as the sunshine, sat at breakfast in a little room whose window was beside the entrance porch. Her baby, wide awake, but quiet and good, lay covered up on the sofa in its night-dress. She was talking to it as she eat her breakfast, and the wide-open little eyes were turned to her as if it understood.
“Good little darling! Sweet, gentle baby! It does not scream and fight as other babies do: no never. It is mamma’s own precious treasure — and mamma is going to dress it presently and put on its pretty worked robe. Oh, baby, baby!” she broke off, her mood changing, and the distress at her heart rising to the surface, above the momentary make-believe dalliance, “if we could but be at rest as others are! We should be happier than the day has hours in it.”
The accession of illness, attacking Sir Adam on the previous day, the great risk they ran in calling in a doctor to him, had shaken poor Rose’s equanimity to the centre. She strove to be brave always, for his sake; she had been in the habit of keeping-in as well as she could the signs of the dread that ever lay upon her, and she had done so in a de
gree yesterday. But in the evening when the doctor had safely gone, and the day and its troubles were over, she had yielded to a sudden fit of hysterical weeping. Her husband came into the room in the midst of it. He partly soothed, partly scolded her: where was the use of fretting, he asked; better take matters as they came. With almost convulsive efforts she swallowed her sobs and dried her eyes; and turned the tables on him by gently reproaching him with getting up, when Dr. Cavendish had peremptorily enjoined him to stay in bed. Sir Adam laughed at that: saying he felt none the worse for his fainting fit, or whatever it was, and was not going to lie a-bed for all the doctors in Christendom.
The cheery morning sun is a great restorer — a gladdening comforter: and Rose felt its influence. During her sleepless night, nothing could be more disheartening, nothing more gloomy than the view pervading her mind: but this morning, with that glorious light from heaven shining on all things, she and the earth alike revived under it One great thing she felt incessant thankfulness for; it was a real mercy — that that miserable visitation of the detective and his policemen had not been delayed to the day of Sir Adam’s illness. Had they caught him in bed, no earthly power, she thought, could have saved him. Karl, stealing over for a few minutes at night, to see for himself what this alarm of increased illness of his brother’s could mean, had warned them both to be prepared, for he had reason to fancy the search might be repeated.
“This spot is getting more dangerous day by day,” murmured Rose to herself, pouring out another cup of tea. “Oh, if we could but get away from it! London itself seems as though it would be safer than this.”
She proceeded with her meal very slowly, her thoughts buried in schemes for their departure. Of late she had been ever weaving a web of possibility for it, a cunning plan of action: and she thought she had formed one. If necessary she would stay on at the Maze with her baby — oh, for months — for years even — so that Adam could but get away. Until this man the detective — more feared by her, more dreadful to contemplate than any man born into the world yet — should take his departure from the place, nothing might be attempted: they could only remain still and quiet; taking what precautions they could against surprise and recapture, and she praying always that her husband might be spared this last crowning calamity: beyond which, if it took place, there would never more be anything in this world but blank despair.