Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 92

"Is he dead?"

Mr. Dare shook his head. "The surgeon says he has been dead ever since the beginning of the night."

"And Monsieur Herbert? Is _he_ dead?"

"_He_ dead!" repeated Mr. Dare in an accent of alarm, fearing possibly she might have a motive for the question. "What should bring him also dead? Mademoiselle, why do you ask it?"

"Eh, me, I don't know," she answered. "I am bewildered with it all. Why should he be dead, and not the other? Why should either be dead?"

Mr. Dare saw that she did look bewildered; scarcely in her senses. She had a white handkerchief in her hand, and was wiping the moisture from her scarcely less white face. "Did you witness the quarrel between them?" he inquired, supposing that she had done so by her words.

"If I did, I not tell," she vehemently answered, her English less clear than usual. "If Joseph say--I hear him say it to you just now--that Monsieur Herbert took a knife to his brother, I not give testimony to it. What affair is it of mine, that I should tell against one or the other? Who did it?--who killed him?"--she rapidly continued. "It was not Monsieur Herbert. No, I will say always that it was not Monsieur Herbert. He would not kill his brother."

"I do not think he would," earnestly spoke Mr. Dare.

"No, no, no!" said mademoiselle, her voice rising with her emphasis. "He never kill his brother; he not enough _mechant_ for that."

"Perhaps he has not come in?" cried Mr. Dare, catching at the thought.

Betsy Garter answered the words. She had stolen up in the general restlessness, and halted there. "He must be come in, sir," she said; "else how could his cloak be in the dining-room? They are saying that it's Mr. Herbert's cloak which was under Mr. Anthony."

"What has Mr. Herbert's cloak to do with his coming in or not coming in?" sharply asked Mr. Dare. "He would not be wearing his cloak this weather."

"But he does wear it, sir," returned Betsy. "He went out in it to-night."

"Did you see him?" sternly asked Mr. Dare.

"If I hadn't seen him, I couldn't have told that he went out in it,"

independently replied Betsy, who, like her mother, was fond of maintaining her own opinion. "I was looking out of the window in Miss Adelaide's room, and I saw Mr. Herbert go out by way of the dining-room window towards the entrance-gate."

"Wearing his cloak?"

"Wearing his cloak," a.s.sented Betsy, "I hoped he was hot enough in it."

The words seemed to carry terrible conviction to Mr. Dare's mind.

Unwilling to believe the girl, he sought Joseph and asked him.

"Yes, for certain," Joseph answered. "Mr. Herbert, as he was coming downstairs to go out, stopped to speak to me, sir, and he was fastening his cloak on then."

Minny ran up, bursting with grief and terror as she seized upon Mr.

Dare. "Papa! papa! is it true?" she sobbed.

"Is what true, child?"

"That it was Herbert? They are saying so."

"Hus.h.!.+" said Mr. Dare. Carrying a candle, he went up to Herbert's room, his heart aching. That Herbert could sleep through the noise was surprising; and yet, not much so. His room was more remote from the house than were the other rooms, and looked towards the back. But, had he slept through it? When Mr. Dare went in, he was sitting up in bed, awaking, or pretending to awake, from sleep. The window, thrown wide open, may have contributed to deaden any sound in the house. "Can you sleep through this, Herbert?" cried Mr. Dare.

Herbert stared, and rubbed his eyes, and stared again, as one bewildered. "Is that you, father?" he presently cried. "What is it?"

"Herbert," said his father, in low tones of pain, of dread; "what have you been doing to your brother?"

Herbert, as if not understanding the drift of the question, stared more than ever. "I have done nothing to him," he presently said. "Do you mean Anthony?"

"Anthony is lying on the dining-room floor killed--murdered. Herbert, _who did it_?"

Herbert Dare sat motionless in bed, looking utterly lost. That he could not understand, or was affecting not to understand, was evident.

"Anthony is--what do you say, sir?"

"He is dead; he is _murdered_," replied Mr. Dare. "Oh, my son, my son, say you did not do it! for the love of heaven, say you did not do it!"

And the unhappy father burst into tears and sank down on the bed, utterly unmanned.

CHAPTER III.

ACCUSED.

The grey dawn of the early May morning was breaking over the world--over the group gathered in Mr. Dare's dining-room. That gentleman, his surviving sons, a stranger, a constable or two; and Sergeant Delves, who had been summoned to the scene. Sundry of the household were going in and out, of their own restless, curious accord, or by summons. The sergeant was making inquiries into the facts and details of the evening.

Anthony Dare--as may be remembered--had sullenly retired to his room, refusing to go out when the message came to him from Lord Hawkesley. It appeared, by what was afterwards learnt, that he, Anthony Dare, had made an appointment to meet Hawkesley and some other men at the Star-and-Garter hotel, where Lord Hawkesley was staying; the proposed amus.e.m.e.nt of the evening being cards. Anthony Dare remained in his chamber, solacing his chafed temper with brandy-and-water, until the waiter from the Star-and-Garter appeared a second time, bearing a note.

This note Sergeant Delves had found in one of the pockets, and had it now open before him. It ran as follows:--

"DEAR DARE,--We are all here waiting, and can't make up the tables without you. What do you mean by s.h.i.+rking us? Come along, and don't be a month over it.--Yours,

"HAWKESLEY."

This note had prevailed. Anthony, possibly repenting of the solitary evening to which he had condemned himself, put on his boots again and went forth: not--it is not pleasant to have to record it, but it cannot be concealed--not sober. He had taken ale with his dinner, wine after it, and brandy-and-water in his room. The three combined had told upon him.

On his arrival at the Star-and-Garter, he found six or seven gentlemen a.s.sembled. But, instead of sitting down there in Lord Hawkesley's room, it was suddenly decided to adjourn to the lodgings of a Mr. Brittle, hard by; a young Oxonian, who had been plucked in his Little Go, and was supposed to be reading hard to avoid a second similar catastrophe. They went to Mr. Brittle's and sat down to cards, over which brandy-and-water and other drinks were introduced. Anthony Dare, by way of quenching his thirst, did not spare them, and was not particular as to the sorts. The consequence was that he soon became most disagreeable company, snarling with all around; in short, unfit for play. This _contretemps_ put the rest of the party out of sorts, and they broke up. But for that, they might probably have sat on, until morning, and that poor unhappy life have been spared. There was no knowing what might have been. Anthony Dare was in no fit state to walk alone, and one of them, Mr. Brittle, undertook to see him home. Mr. Brittle left him at the gate, and Anthony Dare stumbled over the lawn and gained the house. After that, nothing further was known. So much as this would not have been known, but that, in hastening for Delves, the policeman had come across Mr. Brittle. It was only natural that the latter, shocked and startled, should bend his steps to the scene; and from him they gathered the account of Anthony's movements abroad.

But now came the difficulty. Who had let Anthony in? No one. There was little doubt that he had made his way through the dining-room window.

Joseph had turned the key of the front door at eleven o'clock, and he had not been called upon to open it until the return of Mr. and Mrs.

Dare. The policeman who happened to be pa.s.sing when Anthony came home--or it may be more correct to say, was brought home--testified to the probable fact that he had entered by means of the dining-room window. The man had watched him: had seen that, instead of making for the front door, which faced the road and was in view, he had stumbled across the gra.s.s, and disappeared down by the side of the house. On this side the dining-room window was situated; therefore it was only reasonable to suppose that Anthony had so entered.

"Had you any motive in watching him?" asked Sergeant Delves of this man.

"None, except to see that he did not fall," was the reply. "When the gentleman who brought him home loosed his arm, he told him, in a joking way, not to get kissing the ground as he went in; and I thought I'd watch him that I might go to his a.s.sistance if he did fall. He could hardly walk: he pitched about with every step."

"Did he fall?"

"No; he managed to keep up. But I should think he was a good five minutes getting over the gra.s.s plat."

"Did the gentleman remain to watch him?"

"No, not for above a minute. He just waited to see that he got safe over the gravel path on to the gra.s.s, and then he went back."