The Bittermeads Mystery Part 26

"No, no," answered Deede Dawson. "She might be with you perhaps, but she wouldn't drive. Night driving is always dangerous, I think, don't you?"

"There's things more dangerous," Dunn remarked.

"Oh, quite true," answered Deede Dawson. "Well, did you enjoy your visit to Wreste Abbey?"

"No," answered Dunn roughly. "I didn't see Rupert Dunsmore, and it wouldn't have been any good if I had with all those people about."

"You're too impatient," Deede Dawson smiled. "I'm getting everything ready; you can't properly expect to win a game in a dozen moves. You must develop your pieces properly and have all ready before you start your attack. As soon as I'm ready--why, I'll act--and you'll have to do the rest."

"I see," said Dunn thoughtfully.

CHAPTER XXI. DOUBTS AND FEARS

In point of fact Dunn had not been asleep when Deede Dawson came listening at his door. Of late he had slept little and that little had been much disturbed by evil, haunting dreams in which perpetually he saw his dead friend, Charley Wright, and dead John Clive always together, while behind them floated the pale and lovely face of Ella, at whom the two dead men looked and whispered to each other.

In the day such thoughts troubled him less, for when he was under the influence of Ella's gentle presence, and when he could watch her clear and candid eyes, he found all doubt and suspicion melting away like snow beneath warm suns.h.i.+ne.

But in the silence of the night they returned, returned very dreadfully, so dreadfully that often as he lay awake in the darkness beads of sweat stood upon his forehead and he would drive his great hands one against the other in his pa.s.sionate effort to still the thoughts that tormented him. Then, in the morning again, the sound of Ella's voice, the merest glimpse of her grave and gracious personality, would bring back once more his instinctive belief in her.

The morning after Deede Dawson had paid his visit to the attic there was news, however, that disturbed him greatly, for Mrs. Barker, the charwoman who came each morning to Bittermeads, told them that two men in the village--notorious poachers--had been arrested by the police on a charge of being concerned in Mr. Clive's death.

The news was a great shock to Dunn, for, knowing as he thought he did, that the police were working on an entirely wrong idea, he had not supposed they would ever find themselves able to make any arrest. As a matter of fact, these arrests they had made were the result of desperation on the part of the police, who unable to discover anything and entirely absorbed by their preconceived idea that the crime was the work of poachers, had arrested men they knew were poachers in the vague hope of somehow discovering something or of somehow getting hold of some useful clue.

But that Dunn did not know, and feared unlucky chance or undesigned coincidence must have appeared to suggest the guilt of the men and that they were really in actual danger of trial and conviction. He had, too, received that morning, through the secret means of communication he kept open with an agent in London, conclusive proof that at the moment of Clive's death Deede Dawson was in town on business that seemed obscure enough, but none the less in town, and therefore undoubtedly innocent of the actual perpetration of the murder.

Who, then, was left who could have fired the fatal shot?

It was a question Dunn dared not even ask himself but he saw very plainly that if the proceedings against the two arrested men were to be pressed, he would be forced to come forward before his preparations were ready and tell all he knew, no matter at what cost.

All the morning he waited and watched for his opportunity to speak to Ella, who was in a brighter and gayer mood than he had ever seen her in before.

At breakfast Deede Dawson had a.s.sured her that he could not conceive what were the suspicions she had referred to the night previously, and while he would certainly have no objection to her mentioning them at any time, in any quarter she thought fit if anything happened at Wreste Abbey--and would indeed be the first to urge her to do so--he, for his part, considered it most unlikely that anything of the sort she seemed to dread would in fact occur.

"Not at all likely," he said with his happy, beaming smile that never reached those cold eyes of his. "I should say myself that nothing ever did happen at Wreste Abbey, not since the Flood, anyhow. It strikes me as the most peaceful, secluded spot in all England."

"I'm very glad you think so," said Ella, tremendously relieved and glad to hear him say so, and supposing, though his smooth words and smiles and protestations deceived her very little, that, at any rate, what she had said had forced him to abandon whatever plans he had been forming in that direction.

Her victory, as it seemed to her, won so easily and containing good promise of further success in the future, cheered her immensely, and it was in almost a happy mood that she went unto the garden after lunch and met Dunn in a quiet, well-hidden corner, where he had been waiting and watching for long.

His appearance startled her--his eyes were so wild, his whole manner so strained and restless, and she gave a little dismayed exclamation as she saw him.

"Oh, what's the matter?" she asked. "Aren't you well? You look--"

She paused for she did not know exactly how it was he did look; and he said in his harshest, most abrupt manner,

"Do you remember Charley Wright?"

"Why do you ask?" she said, puzzled. "Is anything wrong?"

"Do you remember John Clive?" he asked, disregarding this. "Have you heard two men have been arrested for his murder?"

"Mrs. Barker told me so," she answered gravely. He came a little nearer, almost threateningly nearer.

"What do you think of that?" he asked.

She lifted one hand and put it gently on his arm. The touch of it thrilled him through and through, and he felt a little dazed as he watched it resting on his coat sleeve. She had become very pale also and her voice was low and strained as she said,

"Have you had suspicions too?"

He looked at her as if fascinated for a moment, and then nodded twice and very slowly.

"So have I," she sighed in tones so low he could scarcely hear them.

"Oh, you, you also," he muttered, almost suffocating.

"Yes," she said. "Yes--perhaps the same as yours. My stepfather," she breathed, "Mr. Deede Dawson."

He watched her closely and moodily, but he did not speak.

"I was afraid--at first," she whispered. "But I was wrong--quite wrong.

It is as certain as it can be that he was in London at the time."

From his pocket Dunn took out the handkerchief of hers that he had found near the body of the dead man.

"Is this yours?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered. "Yes, where did you get it?"

He did not answer, but he lifted his hands one after the other, and put them on her shoulder, with the fingers outspread to encircle her throat. It seemed to him that when she acknowledged the owners.h.i.+p of the handkerchief she acknowledged also the perpetration of the deed, and he became a little mad, and he had it in his mind that the slightest, the very slightest, pressure of his fingers on that soft, round throat would put it for ever out of her power to do such things again. Then for himself death would be easy and welcome, and there would be an end to all these doubts and fears that racked him with anguish beyond bearing.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, making no attempt to resist or escape.

Ever so slightly the pressure of his hands upon her throat strengthened and increased. A very little more and the lovely thing of life he watched would be broken and cold for ever. Her eyes were steady, she showed no sign of fear, she stood perfectly still, her hands loosely clasped together before her. He groaned, and his arms fell to his side, helpless. Without the slightest change of expression, she said:

"What were you going to do?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Do you ever go mad? I do, I think. Perhaps you do too, and that explains it. Do you know where Charley Wright is?"

"Yes," she answered directly. "Why? Did you know him, then?"

"You know where he is now?" Dunn repeated.

She nodded quietly.

"I heard from him only last week," she said.