CHAPTER XVII
IN THE CELL
What followed was like a sort of nightmare to Merriton. That he should bearrested for the murder of Dacre Wynne reeled drunkenly in his brain.Murderer! They were calling him a murderer! The liars! The fools! Callinghim a murderer, were they? And taking the word of a crawling worm likeBorkins, a man without honour and utterly devoid of decency, who couldstand up before them and tell them a story that was a tissue of lies. Itwas appalling! What a fiend incarnate this man Cleek was! Coming here atNigel's own bidding, and then suddenly manipulating the evidence, untilit caught him up in its writhing coils like a well-thrown lasso. Oh, ifhe had only let well enough alone and not brought a detective to thehouse. Yet how was he to know that the man would try to fix a murder onhim, himself? Useless for him to speak, to deny. The revolver-shot andthe cruel little bullet (which showed there were others who possessedthat sort of fire-arm besides himself) proved too easily, upon thecircumstantial evidence theory at all events, that his word was naught.
He went through the next hour or two like a man who has been tortured.Silent, but bearing the mark of it upon his white face and in his haggardeyes. And indeed his situation was a terrible and strange one. He had setthe wheels of the law in motion; he himself had brought the relentlessHamilton Cleek into the affair and now he was called a murderer!
In the little cell where they placed him, away from the gaping,murmuring, gesticulating knot of villagers that had marked his progressto the police-station--for news flies fast in the country, especiallywhen there is a viper-tongue like Borkins's to wing it on its way--he wasthankful for the momentary peace and quiet that the place afforded. Atleast he could _think_--think and pace up and down the narrow room withits tiny barred window too high for a man to reach, and its hard campbedstead with the straw mattress, and go through the whole miserablefabrication that had landed him there.
The second day of confinement brought him a visitor. It was 'Toinette.His jailer--a rough-haired village-hand who had taken up with the "Force"and wore the uniform as though it belonged to someone else (which indeedit had)--brought him news of her arrival. It cut him like a lash to seeher thus, and yet the longing for her was so great that it superseded allelse. So he faced the man with a grim smile.
"I suppose, Bennett, that I shall be allowed to see Miss Brellier? Youhave made enquiries?"
"Yes, sir." Bennett was crestfallen and rather ashamed of his duty.
"Any restrictions?"
Bennett hedged.
"Well--if you please--Sir Nigel--that is--"
"What the devil are they, then?"
"Constable Roberts give orders that I was to stay 'ere with you--but Ican turn me back," returned Bennett, with flushing countenance. "ShallI show the lady in?"
"Yes."
She came. Her frock was of some clinging gray material that made her lookmore fairy-like than ever. A drooping veil of gray gauze fell like a mistbefore her face, screening from him the anguished mirrors of her eyes.
"Nigel! My poor, poor Nigel!"
"Little 'Toinette!"
"Oh, Nigel--it seems impossible--utterly! That you should be thought tohave killed Dacre. You of all people! Poor, peace-loving Nigel! Somethingmust be done, dearest; something _shall_ be done! You shall not sufferso, for someone else's sin--you shall not!"
He smiled at her wanly, and told her how beautiful she was. It wasuseless to explain to her the utter futility of it all. There was therevolver and there the bullet. The weapon was his--of the bullet he couldsay nothing. He had only told the truth--and they had not believed him.
"Yes see, dear," he said, patiently, "they do not believe me. They say Ikilled him, and Borkins--lying devil that he is--has told them a story ofhow the thing was done; sworn, in fact, that he saw it all from thekitchen window, saw Wynne lying in the garden path, dying, after I firedat him. Of course the thing's an outrageous lie, but--they're acting uponit."
"_Nigel!_ How dared he?"
"Who? Borkins? That kind of a devil dares anything.... How's your uncle,dear? He has heard, of course?"
Her face brightened, her eyes were suddenly moist. She put her hands uponhis shoulders and tilted her chin so that she could see his eyes.
"Uncle Gustave told me to tell you that he does not believe a word ofit, dearest!" she said, softly. "And he is going to make investigationshimself. He is so unhappy, so terribly unhappy over it all. Such atangled web as it is, such a wicked, wicked plot they have woven aboutyou! Oh, Nigel dearest--_why_ did you not tell me that they weredetectives, these friends of yours who were coming to visit? If youhad only said--"
He held her a moment, and then, leaning forward, kissed her gently uponthe forehead.
"What then, _p'tite_?"
"I would have made you send them away--I would! I would!" she cried,vehemently. "They should not have come--not if I had wired to themmyself! Something told me that day, after you were gone, that a dreadfulthing would happen. I was frightened for you--frightened! And I could nottell why! I kept laughing at myself, trying to tease myself out of it, asthough it were simply--what you call it?--the 'blues'. And now--this!"
He nodded.
"And now--this," he said, grimly, and laughed.
Bennett, hand upon watch, turned apologetically at this juncture.
"Sorry, Sir Nigel," he said, "but time's up. Ten minutes is the timeallowed a prisoner, and--and--I'm afeared the young leddy must go. It'urts me to tell you, sir, but--you'll understand. Dooty is dooty."
"Yes, doubtless, Bennett, though some people's idea of it is differentfrom others'," returned Merriton, with a bleak smile. "Have no fear,'Toinette. There is still plenty of time, and I shall engage thefinest counsel in the land to stand for me. This knot shall be brokensomehow, this tissue of lies must have a flaw somewhere. And nowadayscircumstantial evidence, you know, doesn't hold too much water in a courtof law. God bless you, little 'Toinette."
She clung to him a moment, her face suddenly lightening at the tenor ofhis words--so bravely spoken, with so little conviction behind them. Butthey had helped her, and for that he was glad.
When she had gone, he sat down on the edge of his narrow bed and droppedhis face in the cup of his hands. How hopeless it seemed. What chance hadhe of a future now--with Cleek against him? Cleek the unraveller of athousand riddles that had puzzled the cleverest brains in the universe!Cleek would never admit to having made a blunder this time--though therewas a sort of grim satisfaction in the knowledge that he _had_ blundered,though he himself was the victim.
... He sat there for a long time, thinking, his brain wearied, his heartlike lead. Bennett's heavily-booted feet upon the stone floor brought himback again to realities.
"There's another visitor, sir," said he. "A gentleman. Seen 'im up at theTowers, I 'ave. Name of West, sir. Constable Roberts says as 'ow you maysee him."
How kind of the constable, thought Nigel bitterly. His mouth twisted intoa wry smile. Then his eyes lightened suddenly. Tony West, eh? So all therats hadn't deserted the sinking ship, after all. There were still theold doctor, who came, cheering him up with kind words, bringing him booksthat he thought he could read--as though a man _could_ read books, undersuch circumstances--and now Tony West--good old West!
West strode in, his five-feet-three of manhood looking as though it wereready to throw the jailer's six-feet-one out of the window upon request,and seized Nigel's hand, wringing it furiously.
"Good old Nigel! Gad! but it's fine to see you. And what fool put you inthis idiotic predicament? Wring his damned neck, I would. How are you,old sport?"
Under such light badinage did West try to conceal his real feeling butthere was a tremour of the lips that spoke so banteringly.
Good old West! A friend in a thousand.
"Nice sort of place for the Squire of the Manor to be disporting himself,isn't it?" returned Merriton, fighting his hardest to keep his composureand reply in the same light tone. "I--I--damn it, Tony, you don't believeit, do you?"
West went red to the rim of his collar. He choked with the vehemence ofhis response.
"Believe it, man? D'you think I'm crazy? What sort of a fool would I beto believe it? Wasn't I there, that night, with you? Wait until I give myevidence in court. Bullet or no bullet, you're no--no murderer, Nigel;I'd swear my life away on that. There were others on worse terms withWynne than you, old chap. There was Stark, for one. Stark used to borrowmoney from him in the old days, you know, until they had a devil of ashindy over an I.O.U. and the friendship bust. You'd no more reason tokill him than Lester Stark, I swear. Or me, for that matter."
"No, I'd no reason to kill him, Tony. But they'll take that quarrel wehad over the Frozen Flame that night, and bring it up against me incourt. They'll bring everything against me; everything that can betwisted or turned or bullied into blackening my name. If ever I getscot-free, I'll kill that man Borkins."
West put up his hand suddenly.
"Don't," he said, quietly; "or they'll be putting that against you, too.Believe me, Nigel, old boy, the Law's the greatest duffer on earth. Bythe way, here's a piece of news for you! Heard it as I stopped in at theTowers this morning. Saw that man Headland, the detective. He told me totell you, and I clean forgot. But they found an I.O.U. on Wynne's body,an I.O.U. for two thou'--in Lester Stark's name. Dated two nights beforethe party. Looks a bit funny, that, doesn't it?"
Funny? Merriton felt his heart suddenly bound upward, and as suddenlydrop back in his breast like lead. Glad that there was a chance foranother pal to come under the same brutal sway as he had? What sort ofa friend was he, anyway? But an I.O.U.!... And in Lester Stark's name!He remembered the black looks that passed between the two of them thatnight, remembered them as though they had been but yesterday. He jerkedhis chin up.
"What're they going to do about it?"
"Headland told me to tell you that he was going to investigate the matterfurther. That you were to keep up your heart.... Seemed a decent sort ofa chap, I must say."
Keep up his heart!... And there was a chance of someone else taking hisshare of the damnable thing, after all!... But Lester Stark wouldn't_kill_. Perhaps not--and yet, some months ago he had told him to his facethat he'd like to send Wynne's body to burn in hell!... H'm. Well, hewould have to keep his mouth shut upon _that_ conversation, at allevents, or they'd have poor Stark by the heels the next minute.... Butsomehow his heart had lightened. Cleek didn't seem such a bad chap, afterall. And they couldn't hang him yet, anyhow.
For the rest of the long, dreary day the memory of that I.O.U. withLester Stark's name sprawled across the bottom of it, in the dashingcaligraphy that he knew, danced before his mind's eye like a fleetinghope, making the day less long.
The Riddle of the Frozen Flame Page 17