The Dust of Conflict Part 6

St.i.tt led in a young man whom everybody recognized as the booking clerk from the station four miles away. "Mr. Appleby bought a ticket for Liverpool just in time to catch the train on the evening Davidson's body was found," he said. "He came into the office and sat down about a minute. I noticed he turned up the steamer sailings in the paper he borrowed."

"A mail-boat left for New York the following afternoon," said Sergeant St.i.tt.

The effect was evident. Men looked at one another with suspicion in their eyes, the coroner sent for Palliser and conferred with him and St.i.tt, while the heavy stillness the murmur of their voices emphasized was curiously significant. Hitherto n.o.body had seriously thought of connecting Appleby with Davidson's death, but it now appeared that there could be only one meaning to the fact that he had sought safety in flight. Then the coroner stood up.

"It is unfortunate that more precautions were not taken to secure the attendance of so important a witness as Mr. Appleby," he said. "As it appears tolerably certain that he is no longer in this country, there is, I think, nothing to be gained by postponing the inquiry, and it is for you to consider whether you can arrive at a decision without his testimony."

The jury were not long over the work, and the Northrop carpenter and wheelwright made their decision known. "We find," he said, "that the deceased died of exhaustion as the result of a fall from the footbridge, during, or very soon after, a struggle with a person, or more than one person, by whom he was injured. We recommend that a double fence be placed on the said bridge, with three by two standards and two rails well tennoned in."

"I am afraid that is a trifle too ambiguous," said the coroner.

There was another consultation, and this time the verdict was concise.

"Manslaughter by some person or persons unknown."

"It will now be the duty of the police to find them," said the coroner.

Northrop Hall was almost empty of its guests that evening. They, of course, knew what everybody's suspicions now pointed to, and while it was unpleasant to leave abruptly, felt that it would be an especially tactful thing to G.o.dfrey Palliser accepted their excuses with dry concurrence, but he pressed Violet Wayne and her aunt to remain. It would be a kindness, he said, because Tony seemed considerably distressed by the affair. The girl fancied that he appeared so when he came into the room where she sat beside a sinking fire. Only one lamp was lighted and the room was dim; while a cold wind wailed outside, and the rain beat upon the windows. Tony s.h.i.+vered, and his face seemed a trifle haggard when he stopped and leaned on the back of her chair.

"It is a wild night, he said.

"Tell me what you are thinking, Tony," said the girl, "I fancy I know."

"I was thinking of the big liner driving through the blackness with Bernard on board. She will be plunging forecastle under into the Atlantic combers now. I almost wish I were on board her too."

"But I should be here," the girl said softly. "Do you want to leave me, Tony?"

Tony laughed. "Oh, I talk at random now and then, and I'm not quite myself to-day. That confounded coroner made me savage for one thing. Did you feel it very much?"

"Can't you see that I am tired, dear?"

Tony, who moved a little, saw it plainly by the pallor of her face and the weariness in her eyes.

"I felt I could have killed the officious beast," he said, and stood still, looking down on her irresolutely. "But whatever did you give Bernard ten pounds for, Violet?"

"Is there any reason why I should tell you?"

"Yes"-and the man's tone suggested that he felt his grievance was warranted. "I think there is. Of course, I'm not a censorious person-I can't afford to be-but it really didn't seem quite the thing, you know."

The protest was perhaps natural, but Violet Wayne checked a little sigh.

She was in love with Tony, and that meant a good deal, but he was trying now and then, and she had discovered that his views were narrow, and now and then somewhat mean. Indeed, she had once or twice received an almost painful astonishment when he had made them plain to her.

In the present case his reproaches were especially ill-timed after what she had suffered on his behalf. Tony was in difficulties, and she had desired to free him of them; but it had been clear that he must be helped surrept.i.tiously, lest his self-respect should suffer, which was why she had pa.s.sed on the task to a man she had confidence in, and had so feared the coroner would force a revelation from her.

"You don't wish to vex me?" she said.

"No," said the man, still with a trace of petulance. "That is the last thing I would like to do; but if you ever want ten pounds when you haven't got them I wish you would come to me. You see, it really isn't flattering to me that you would sooner borrow from Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry, and it sets the confounded idiots talking."

A faint light crept into Violet Wayne's eyes, and Tony knew he had gone far enough.

"The one thing I resent is that it apparently sets you thinking," she said. "I can't be satisfied with less than I offer you, Tony, and the man who loves me must believe in me implicitly. I did not get angry when you would not share your troubles with me."

Tony softened. "I'm sorry, Violet, but the fact is I don't feel very pleased about anything to-night. n.o.body could expect it!"

"Is it Davidson's death that is troubling you?"

She looked at him with a curious intentness, for Tony's face was haggard, and a horrible fear came upon the man as she did so. Her gaze disconcerted him, and he fancied he saw suspicion in it. Accordingly he clutched at the first excuse that presented itself.

"Not altogether! It's Bernard," he said.

Another irretrievable step was taken. Tony had waited as usual for events, instead of choosing a path to be adhered to in spite of them. As the result he was forced into one by which he had not meant to go, and it led rapidly down hill. Violet Wayne, however, straightened herself a trifle in her chair.

"Tony," she said, "it is quite impossible that you should think what your words suggest."

The man's face flushed, for her quiet a.s.surance stirred the bitterness of jealousy that had hitherto lain dormant in him, and again he answered without reflection, eager only to justify himself.

"When a man borrows money, and goes out at night to meet another who may have been blackmailing him, and then disappears when that man is found dead with marks of violence on him, what would anybody think?" he said.

"Blackmailing him!" said Violet Wayne, and then sat very still a moment while the blood crept into her pale cheek, for the meaning of one or two vague allusions she had heard concerning Lucy Davidson flashed upon her.

"It slipped out. Of course, I should not have mentioned it to you."

"You have done so, but the thing is so utterly hateful that it carries its refutation with it"; and there was a portentous sparkle in the girl's eyes as she fixed them upon him.

Tony saw it, and trembled inwardly. He had been favored with glimpses of Violet Wayne's inner self before, and could discern the difference between a becoming prudery and actual abhorrence.

"Still," he said slowly, realizing that he was committed, "he disappeared. Of course, the affair may not be as black as it looks, and perhaps he was driven into it. Men with really good intentions are forced into doing what they never meant to now and then."

Violet Wayne laughed a little scornful laugh. "Isn't the cowardice which leads a man into meanness he is ashamed of more contemptible than bold iniquity?"

"Well," said Tony, "I don't quite know. I don't worry over those questions, but it seems to me there is something to be said for the man who does what he shouldn't when he can't help it."

"Can't help it?"

"Yes," said Tony. "I mean when it would only cause trouble to everybody if he did the correct thing."

The girl looked at him curiously. "I think we had better abandon that subject, Tony," she said. "We will go back to the other. Your friend could have had no hand in Davidson's death-because he is your friend, and because I know what kind of man he is. Is there nothing you could do to clear him?"

Tony shook his head. "No; I wish I could," he said.

"Still, you see, it doesn't matter quite so much in his case. He leaves n.o.body to worry about it behind him, and had no prospects. He told me he was going out to try his fortune in another land, anyway."

"It doesn't matter! Is it nothing that he should go out with a brand of that kind upon him?"

"Well," said Tony reflectively, "I really don't think it counts for very much where he is going to. You see, they are not remarkably particular in America."

Violet Wayne rose. "You are not in a pleasant mood tonight, Tony, and I am tired. We will not stay here and vex each other."

Tony endeavored to slip his arm about her. "I know I'm a bad-tempered beast now and then. I can only tell you that you are ever so much too good for me again."