The Bittermeads Mystery Part 20

The picture was one of gentleness and peace and an innocence that thought no wrong, and yet with his own eyes he had seen her not an hour ago fleeing with hurried steps and fearful looks from the spot where lay a murdered man.

Somewhat unsteadily, for he felt so little master of himself, it was as though he had no longer even control of his own limbs, Dunn stumbled forward, and Ella looked up and saw him, and saw also that he was looking at her very strangely.

She rose and came towards him, her needlework still in her hands.

"What is the matter?" she said in a voice of some concern. "Are you ill?"

"No," he answered. "No. I've been looking for Mr. Clive."

"Have you?" she said, a little surprised apparently, but in no way fl.u.s.tered or disturbed. "Did you find him?"

Dunn did not answer, for indeed he could not, and she said again:

"Did you find him?"

Still he made no answer, for it seemed to him those four words were the most awful that any one had ever uttered since the beginning of the world.

"What is the matter?" she said again. "Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, no, no," he said, and he gave himself a little shake like a man wakening from deep sleep and trying to remember where he was.

"Well, then," she said.

"I found Mr. Clive," he said hardly and abruptly. And he repeated again: "Yes, I found him."

They remained standing close together and facing each other, and he saw her as through a veil of red, and it was as though a red mist enveloped her, and where her shadow lay the earth was red, he thought, and where she put her foot it seemed to him red tracks remained, and never before had he understood how utterly he loved her and must love her, now and for evermore.

But he uttered no sound and made no movement, only stood very still, thinking to himself how dreadful it was that he loved her so greatly.

She was not paying him, any attention now. A rose bush was near by, and she picked one of the flowers, and arranged it carefully at her waist.

She said, still looking at him:

"Do you know--I wish you would shave yourself?"

"Why?" he mumbled.

"I should like to see you," she answered. "I think I have a curiosity to see you."

"I should think you could do that well enough," he said in the same low, mumbled tones.

"No," she answered. "I can only see some very untidy hair and a pair of eyes--not very nice eyes, rather frightening eyes. I should like to see the rest of your face some day so as to know what it's like."

"Perhaps you shall--some day," he said.

"Is that a threat?" she asked. "It sounded like one."

"Perhaps," he answered.

She laughed lightly and turned away.

"You make me very curious," she said. "But then, you've always done that."

She went back to her seat by her mother, and he walked on moodily to the house.

Mrs. Dawson said to Ella:

"How can you talk to that man, my dear? I think he looks perfectly dreadful--hardly like a human being."

"I was just telling him he ought to shave himself," said Ella. "I told him I should like to know what he was really like."

"I shall ask father," said Mrs. Dawson sternly, "to make it a condition of his employment here."

CHAPTER XVII. A DECLARATION

Dunn knew very well that he ought to give immediate information to the authorities of what had happened.

But he did not. He told himself that nothing could help poor John Clive, and that any precipitate action on his part might still fatally compromise his plans, which were now so near completion.

But his real reason was that he knew that if he came forward he would be very closely questioned, and sooner or later forced to tell the things he knew so terribly involving Ella.

And he knew that to surrender her to the police and proclaim her to the world as guilty of such things were tasks beyond his strength; though, to himself, with a touch of wildness in his thoughts, he said that no proved and certain guilt should go unpunished even though his own hand--It was a train of ideas he did not pursue.

"Charley Wright first and now John Clive," he said to himself. "But the end is not yet."

Again he would not let his thoughts go on but checked them abruptly.

In this dark and troubled mood he went out to busy himself with the garden, and all the time he worked he watched with a sort of vertigo of horror where Ella sat in the suns.h.i.+ne by her mother's side, her white hands moving nimbly to and fro upon her needlework.

It was not long, however, before the tragedy of the wood was discovered, for Clive had been seen to go in that direction, and when he did not return a search was made that was soon successful.

The news was brought to Bittermeads towards evening by a tradesman's boy, who came up from the village to bring something that had been ordered from there.

"Have you heard?" he said to Dunn excitedly. "Mr. Clive's been shot dead by poachers."

"Oh--by poachers?" repeated Dunn.

"Yes, poachers," the boy answered, and went on excitedly to tell his tale with many, and generally very inaccurate, details.

But that the crime had been discovered and instantly set down to poachers was at least certain, and Dunn realized at once that the adoption of this simple and apparently plausible theory would put an end to all really careful investigation of the circ.u.mstances and make the discovery of the truth highly improbable.

For the idea that the murder was the work of poachers would, when once adopted, fill the minds of the police and of every one else, and no suspicion would be directed elsewhere.

By the tremendous relief he felt, Dunn understood how heavy had been the burden of fear and apprehension that till now had oppressed him.

If he had not found that handkerchief--if he had not secured that letter--why, by now the police would be at Bittermeads.