The Bittermeads Mystery Part 12

"Has the woman come yet?" Deede Dawson asked. "If she has, you might tell her to give Dunn some breakfast. I've just been telling him I'm willing to give him another chance and to take him on as gardener and chauffeur, so you can keep an eye on him and see if he works well."

Ella was silent for a moment, but her expression was grave and a little puzzled as though she did not quite understand this and wondered what it meant, and when she looked up at her stepfather, Dunn was certain there was both distrust and suspicion in her manner.

"I suppose," she said then, "last night seemed to you a good recommendation?" As she spoke she glanced at her wrists where the bruises still showed, and Deede Dawson's smile broadened.

"One should always be ready to give another chance to a poor fellow who's down," he said. "He may run straight now he's got an opportunity.

I told him he had better shave, but he seems to think a beard suits him best. What do you say?"

"Breakfast's waiting," Ella answered, turning away without taking any notice of the question.

"I'll go in then," said Deede Dawson. "You might show Dunn the way to the kitchen--his name's Robert Dunn, by the way--and tell Mrs. Barker to give him something to eat."

"I should think he could find his way there himself," Ella remarked.

But though she made this protest, she obeyed at once, for though she used a considerable liberty of speech to her stepfather, it was none the less evident that she was very much afraid of him and would not be very likely to disobey him or oppose him directly.

"This way," she said to Dunn, and walked on along a path that led to the back of the house. Once she stopped and looked back. She smiled slightly and disdainfully as she did so, and Dunn saw that she was looking at a clump of small bushes near where they had been standing.

He guessed at once that she believed Deede Dawson to be behind those bushes watching them, and when she glanced at him he understood that she wished him to know it also.

He said nothing, though a faint movement visible in the bushes convinced him that her suspicions, if, indeed, she had them, were well-founded, and they walked on in silence, Ella a little ahead, and Dunn a step or two behind.

The garden was a large one, and had at one time been well cultivated, but now it was neglected and overgrown. It struck Dunn that if he was to be the gardener here he would certainly not find himself short of work, and Ella, without looking round, said to him over her shoulder:

"Do you know anything about gardening?"

"A little, miss," he answered.

"You needn't call me 'miss,'" she observed. "When a man has tied a girl to a chair I think he may regard himself as on terms of some familiarity with her."

"What must I call you?" he asked, and his words bore to himself a double meaning, for, indeed, what name was it by which he ought to call her?

But she seemed to notice nothing as she answered "My name is Cayley --Ella Cayley. You can call me Miss Cayley. Do you know anything of motoring?"

"Yes," he answered. "Though I never cared much for motoring at night."

She gave him a quick glance, but said no more, and they came almost immediately to the back door.

Ella opened it and entered, nodding to him to follow, and crossing a narrow, stone-floored pa.s.sage, she entered the kitchen where a tall gaunt elderly woman in a black bonnet and a course ap.r.o.n was at work.

"This is Dunn, Mrs. Barker," she called, raising her voice. "He is the new gardener. Will you give him some breakfast, please?" She added to Dunn:

"When you've finished, you can go to the garage and wash the car, and when you speak to Mrs. Barker you must shout. She is quite deaf, that is why my stepfather engaged her, because he was sorry for her and wanted to give her a chance, you know..."

CHAPTER XI. THE PROBLEM

When he had finished his breakfast, and after he had had the wash of which he certainly stood in considerable need, Dunn made his way to the garage and there occupied himself cleaning the car. He noticed that the mud with which it was liberally covered was of a light sandy sort, and he discovered on one of the tyres a small sh.e.l.l.

Apparently, therefore, last night's wild journey had been to the coast, and it was a natural inference that the sea had provided a secure hiding-place for the packing-case and its dreadful contents.

But then that meant that there was no evidence left on which he could take action.

As he busied himself with his task, he tried to think out as clearly as he could the position in which he found himself and to decide what he ought to do next.

To his quick and hasty nature the swiftest action was always the most congenial, and had he followed his instinct, he would have lost no time in denouncing Deede Dawson. But his cooler thoughts told him that he dared not do that, since it would be to involve risks, not for himself, but for others, that he simply dared not contemplate.

He felt that the police, even if they credited his story, which he also felt that very likely they would not do, could not act on his sole evidence.

And even if they did act and did arrest Deede Dawson, it was certain no jury would convict on so strange a story, so entirely uncorroborated.

The only result would be to strengthen Deede Dawson's position by the warning, to show him his danger, and to give him the opportunity, if he chose to use it, of disappearing and beginning again his plots and plans after some fresh and perhaps more deadly fas.h.i.+on.

"Whereas at present," he mused, "at any rate, I'm here and he doesn't seem to suspect me, and I can watch and wait for a time, till I see my way more clearly."

And this decision he came to was a great relief to him, for he desired very greatly to know more before he acted and in especial to find out for certain what was Ella's position in all this.

It was Deede Dawson's voice that broke in upon his meditations.

"Ah, you're busy," he said. "That's right, I like to see a man working hard. I've got some new things for you I think may fit fairly well, and Mrs. Dawson is going to get one of the attics ready for you to sleep in."

"Very good, sir," said Dunn.

He wondered which attic was to be a.s.signed to him and if it would be that one in which he had found his friend's body. He suspected, too, that he was to be lodged in the house so that Deede Dawson might watch him, and this pleased him, since it meant that he, in his turn, would be able to watch Deede Dawson.

Not that there appeared much to watch, for the days pa.s.sed on and it seemed a very harmless and quiet life that Deede Dawson lived with his wife and stepdaughter.

But for the memory, burned into Dunn's mind, of what he had seen that night of his arrival, he would have been inclined to say that no more harmless, gentle soul existed than Deede Dawson.

But as it was, the man's very gentleness and smiling urbanity filled him with a loathing that it was at times all he could do to control.

The attic a.s.signed to him to sleep in was that where he had made his dreadful discovery, and he believed this had been done as a further test of his ignorance, for he was sure Deede Dawson watched him closely to see if the idea of being there was in any way repugnant to him.

Indeed at another time he might have shrunk from the idea of sleeping each night in the very room where his friend had been foully done to death, but now he derived a certain grim satisfaction and a strengthening of his nerves for the task that lay before him.

Only a very few visitors came to Bittermeads, especially now that Mr.

John Clive, who had come often, was laid up. But one or two of the people from the village came occasionally, and the vicar appeared two or three times every week, ostensibly to play chess with Deede Dawson, but in reality, Dunn thought, drawn there by Ella, who, however, seemed quite unaware of the attraction she exercised over the good man.

Dunn did not find that he was expected to do very much work, and in fact, he was left a good deal to himself.

Once or twice the car was taken out, and occasionally Deede Dawson would come into the garden and chat with him idly for a few minutes on indifferent subjects. When it was fine he would often bring out a little travelling set of chessmen and board and proceed to amuse himself, working out or composing problems.

One day he called Dunn up to admire a problem he had just composed.

"Pretty clever, eh?" he said, admiring his own work with much complacence. "Quite an original idea of mine and I think the key move will take some finding. What do you say? I suppose you do play chess?"

"Only a very little," answered Dunn.