The Golden Web Part 27

"He is in front, lying on a chair," she whispered. "They won't be able to get him in now before we are there."

The road terminated suddenly upon the beach. The man and the girl scrambled up a little s.h.i.+ngly mound. When at last Winifred heard the sounds of their approach, they were already between her and the house.

Any attempt at escape was useless. She came a few steps toward them.

"Who are you, please, and what do you want?" she asked quickly.

Hefferom stretched out a hand toward the p.r.o.ne figure of Rowan, who was lying there still with closed eyes. "We want a few words with your brother," he said. "We shall not keep him long, but it is very important. We have come a long way to see him."

"It is impossible," she said firmly. "He is very ill indeed. The doctor allows him to see no one. I don't know how you found your way here, but you must please return at once."

"I have come a long way," Hefferom said slowly.

"I am sorry," she answered, "but can't you see that it makes no difference? If you were to ask him questions, he is not well enough to answer you--scarcely to understand. Any sudden shock at all--even a recognition--might kill him."

Hefferom hesitated no longer. He pushed Winifred away, and motioned to Ruby to follow him. At that moment Rowan opened his eyes and turned his head. Hefferom walked towards him and leaned over his chair.

"You remember me, Rowan?" he said. "My name is Hefferom, Steve Hefferom.

We were up the Newey Valley together, camped out, you know, at Prince's Gorge, for more than a month,--you and I and Deane, and a lot of us."

"I remember," Rowan faltered, trying to raise himself. "Yes, I remember!"

He had a fit of coughing. Winifred pa.s.sed her arms around him and held him up. "If you stay," she whispered to Hefferom, "you will kill him. He ought not to speak ever a sentence."

"It isn't much we want him to say, miss," Hefferom answered doggedly, "but there's a question he's got to answer. If he is as near death as you say, it can't make much difference what happens, and it means more than death to me and to this young lady."

Rowan had recovered sufficiently to drink from a gla.s.s which Winifred had handed to him. He turned once more toward Hefferom. "That is all finished," he said painfully,--"those days. I am ill,--too ill to talk, too ill to think, too ill to live! Please go."

Hefferom bent over him. "Rowan," he said, "you and I were never enemies, even if we didn't exactly hit it off together. Listen to me for a moment. Sinclair borrowed my last three hundred pounds in Cape Town to come over here and lay claim to the Little Anna Gold-Mine. He had the government deed with him. I have seen it. I followed him over to claim my share, and I found him dead, killed, and the paper gone. I am not asking you to give away your game, whatever it was, but we want the paper. This is Sinclair's niece with me, and I am his partner. We inherit his claim to the Little Anna Gold-Mine, and we want that doc.u.ment."

"The doc.u.ment was not amongst Sinclair's effects when they were examined after his death," Rowan said. "I did not take it. I do not know what has become of it. That is the truth. Leave me alone now. I cannot talk any more."

His head dropped back upon his pillow. He was white to the lips.

Winifred hurried to his side. Once more she turned upon the two.

"Are you satisfied?" she cried. "You have nearly killed him--for nothing. I know very well that no doc.u.ment of any sort such as you describe has been found. If Mr. Sinclair ever had it, it was probably stolen from him."

"Stolen, yes!" Hefferom said,--"stolen right enough! That is what we are here about. This young lady is his niece, and I'm his partner. What was left behind belongs to us, and, so far as I know, the only thing worth having was that doc.u.ment. We want it, and, by G.o.d," he wound up, "we've got to have it!"

"Do you imagine," the girl asked, without change of countenance, "that you will find it here?"

"I will tell you what I do imagine," Hefferom answered. "Men don't commit murder for nothing. Your brother tried to steal that paper, or rather he did steal it. The game's up now. He's no opportunity to make use of it, and it belongs to us. It belongs to us and we've come for it.

There, now you know the truth. We've come for it, and we've come to stop until we get it."

Rowan raised himself a little in his seat. "Hefferom," he said, "it's no use talking like that. I haven't got it. I'll be frank, frank as you have been. I know no more than you do who has got it. I quarrelled with Sinclair, and he got suspicious. We fought in his room, and the result you know, but I was arrested before I left the hotel. Everyone knows that. The paper--I never had it--I never even saw it. Where it is now G.o.d only knows. I don't."

Rowan fell back in his chair, coughing violently. For several moments he was incapable of speech. Winifred knelt by his side. When he had finished coughing, she held a winegla.s.s to his lips and made him sip its contents. He lay back now as though completely exhausted. She turned to face these unwelcome visitors.

"You see," she cried, pointing to him, "a little more of this and you will kill him. Go away, both of you. He has nothing to tell you."

Hefferom laughed a little brutally. "Come," he said, "this game won't do. We are here for the truth, not to be put off with these fairy-tales.

It is the truth we want, and the truth we'll have, or I'll wring it out of him even if it kills him."

Rowan's eyes were closed, and he showed no sign of having heard.

Winifred stood up boldly before him. "You are fools!" she said. "He has told you all he knows. If Sinclair ever had the deed you speak of, he parted with it to someone else, not to my brother."

"Someone else!" Hefferom repeated. "Do you take us for fools? If he parted with that deed, he parted with it for a fortune. Where's the money? Show us the deed or the money, and we are satisfied. Show us neither, and we'll not leave this place until he has spoken."

A step upon the s.h.i.+ngle behind suddenly diverted their attention. The eyes of every one of them were fixed upon the tall figure who was walking swiftly up the slope. They had been so engrossed that they had not even heard the sound of the motor-car which was standing there, splashed with mud, and with its engine still panting. With his gla.s.ses in his hand, and his long gray coat thrown open, Stirling Deane strode up to them.

"Come," he said, "it seems to me that I have arrived opportunely. What does this mean? Who are these people? Miss Sinclair, is this man your companion? What does he mean by speaking in such a tone to a dying man?"

No one answered him. Hefferom stood as though turned to stone, but his eyes never left Deane's.

CHAPTER VII

HEFFEROM IS OPTIMISTIC

Ruby Sinclair leaned forward and touched her companion's back as they flew through the village of Rakney. "Look," said she. "You see that cottage we are just pa.s.sing? That is where I have lived for the last four years."

Hefferom followed her outstretched finger. He saw the little grove of bare trees, and the marshland stretching out beyond to the bare sea.

"Winter and summer?" he asked.

"Winter and summer."

He nodded. "About time you went fortune-hunting!" he said.

No other word pa.s.sed between them until they reached the railway station. They descended from the car, and watched it almost immediately swing round and disappear.

"So this is the end of our little excursion to Rakney," Ruby remarked.

"Yes!" Hefferom answered. "Aren't you satisfied?"

"Why should I be?" she asked. "What have we gained?"

Hefferom drew a long breath. "Ah, I forgot!" he said. "You don't understand."

He drew her into the refreshment room. She declined to drink, but she sat in a corner while he disposed of several whiskies and sodas. At first he would say nothing, and she waited. Presently he began.

"You think," he said, "that I was a coward, because when Deane bundled us off in his car and told the man to drive us to the nearest railway station, I did not protest. You think that I should have made a scene there? It wasn't worth while. Deane's coming gave the whole game away.

Don't you really understand?"

"Not a word," she answered.

"Listen, then. Stirling Deane is the man who is supposed to be the owner of the Little Anna Gold-Mine, which was really your Uncle Sinclair's."