Johnny Ludlow Fourth Series Part 30

Not at once could we take in the features of the scene; for, all the light came in through the one long narrow opening, a framed loophole without gla.s.s, that was set in the deep round wall of the tower. A mattress was spread on the floor, with a pillow and blankets; one chair stood close to a box that served for a table, on which he no doubt eat his meals, for there were plates and food on it; another box, its lid open, was in a corner, and on the other chair sat Frank. That was every earthly article the place contained. It was through that opening--you could not call it a window--that Frank's cries for help had gone forth to the air. There he sat, the chain round his waist, turning his amazed eyes upon us.

And raving mad, you ask? No. He was all skin and bone, and his fair hair hung down like that of a wild man of the woods, but he was as sane as you or I. He rose up, the chain clanking, and then we saw that it was long enough to admit of his moving about to any part of the den.

"Oh, G.o.d bless you, Frank!--we have come to release you," burst forth the Squire, impetuously seizing both his hands. "G.o.d help you, my poor lad!" And Frank, what with surprise and the not being over stout, burst into joyous tears.

The ingenious scheme of taking possession of Frank, and representing him as dead, that he might enjoy all the money, had occurred to Stephen Radcliffe when he found Frank was recovering under Dr. Dale's treatment.

During the visits Stephen paid to London at that time, he and Pitt, Dr.

Dale's head man, became very intimate: and when Pitt was discharged from Dr. Dale's they grew more so. Stephen Radcliffe would not perhaps have done any harm to Frank in the shape of poison or a dagger, being no more of a killer and slayer of men than were his neighbours; but to keep him concealed in the Torr, so as to reap the benefit himself of all the money, he looked upon as a very venial crime indeed--quite justifiable, so to say. Especially, if he could escape being found out. And this fine scheme he perfected and put in practice, and successfully carried through.

How much of it he confided to Pitt, or how much he did not, will never be known. Certain it was, that Pitt wrote the letter announcing Frank's death; though we could not find out that he had helped it in any other way. But a very curious coincidence attended the affair; one that aided Stephen's plans materially; and but for its happening I do not see that they could have succeeded when inquiries were made. In the London house where Stephen lodged (Gibraltar Terrace, that I and the Squire had a two days' hunt to find) there came to live a young man, who was taken ill close upon his entrance with a malady arising from his habits of drinking. Pitt, coming often to Gibraltar Terrace then with Stephen Radcliffe, took to attend on the young man out of good nature, doing for him all that could be done. It was this young man who died, and was buried in Finchley Cemetery; and of whose death the landlady with the faded face and black silk ap.r.o.n spoke to the Squire, thereby establis.h.i.+ng in our minds the misapprehension that it was Francis Radcliffe. Stephen did not take Frank to the lodgings at all; he brought him straight down to the Torr when he was released from Dr. Dale's, taking care to get out at a remote country station in the dusk of evening, where his own gig, conveyed thither by Becca, was in waiting.

He laid his plans well, that crafty Stephen! And, once he had got Frank securely into that upper den, he might just have kept him there for life, but for that blessed outlet in the wall, and no one been any the wiser.

Stephen Radcliffe did not bargain for that. It nearly always happens that in doing an ill deed we overreach ourselves in some fatal way.

Knowing that no sound, though it were loud enough to awaken the seven sleepers, could penetrate from that upper room through the ma.s.sive walls of the house, and be heard below, Stephen thought his secret was safe, and that Frank might call out, if he would, until Doomsday. It never occurred to him that the cries could get out through that unglazed window in the tower wall, and set the neighbourhood agog with curiosity.

They did, however: and Stephen, whatever amount of dread it might have brought his heart, was unable to stop them. Not until Frank had been for some months chained in his den, did it occur to himself to make those cries, so hopeless was he of their being heard below to any good purpose. But one winter night when the wind was howling outside, and the sound of it came booming into his ears through the window, it struck him that he might be heard through that very opening; and from that time his voice was raised in supplication evening after evening. Stephen could do nothing. He dared not brick the opening up lest some suspicion or other should be excited outside; he could not remove Frank, for there was no other secret room to remove him to, or where his cries would not have been heard below. He ordered Frank to be still: he threatened him; he once took a horsewhip to him and laid it about his shoulders. All in vain. When Frank was alone, his cries for release never ceased. Stephen and his household put it upon the birds and the wind, and what not; but they grew to dread it: and Stephen, even at this time, of discovery, was perpetually ransacking his brains for some safe means of departing for Canada and carrying Frank with him. The difficulty lay in conveying Frank out of the Torr and away. They might drug him for the bare exit, but they could not keep him perpetually drugged; they could not hinder him coming in contact with his fellow-men on the journey and transit, and Frank had a tongue in his head. No: Stephen saw no hope, no safety, but in keeping him where he was.

"But how could you allow yourself to be brought up here?--and fastened to a stake in this shameful fas.h.i.+on?" was nearly the first question of the Squire when he could collect his senses: and he asked it with just a touch of temper, for he was beginning to think that Frank, in permitting it, must have been as simple as the fool in a travelling circus.

"He got me up by stratagem," answered Frank, tossing his long hair back from his face. "While we were sitting at supper the night we arrived here, he began talking about the wonderful discovery he had made of the staircase and opening to the tower. Naturally I was interested; and when Stephen proposed to show it me at once, I a.s.sented gladly. Becca came with us, saying she'd carry the candle. We got up here, and were all three standing in the middle of the floor, just where we are standing now, when I suddenly had a chain--this chain--slipped round my waist, and found myself fastened to the wall, a prisoner."

"But why did you come to the Torr at all?" stamped the Squire, while old Jones stretched out his hands, as if putting imaginary handcuffs on Stephen's. "Why did you not go at once to your own home--or come to us?

When you knew you were going to leave Dale's, why didn't you write to say so?"

"When events are past and gone we perceive the mistakes we have made, though we do not see them at the time," answered Frank, turning his blue eyes from one to the other of us. "Dr. Dale did not wish me to quit his house quite so soon; though I was perfectly well, he said another month there would be best for me. I, however, was anxious to get away, more eager for it than I can tell you--which was only natural. Stephen whispered to me that he would accomplish it, but that I must put myself entirely in his hands, and not write to any one down here about it. He got me out, sooner than I had thought for: sooner, as he declared, than he had thought for himself; and he said we must break the news to Annet very cautiously, for she was anything but strong. He proposed to take me to the Torr for the first night of my return, and give me a bed there; and the following day the communication could be made to Annet at Pitchley's Farm, and then I might follow it as soon as I pleased. It all seemed to me feasible; quite the right way of going to work; in fact, the only way: I thanked Stephen, and came down here with him in all confidence."

"Good patience!" cried the Squire. "And you had no suspicions, Frank Radcliffe!--knowing what Stephen was!"

"I never knew he would do such a dastardly deed as this. How could I know it?"

"Oh, come along!" returned the Squire, beginning to stumble down the narrow, dark stairs. "We'll have the law of him."

The key of the chain had been found hanging on a nail outside the door, out of poor Frank's reach. He was soon free; but staggered a little when he began to descend the stairs. Duffham laid hold of him behind, and Tod went before.

"Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!" he broke out with reverent emotion, when the bright sun burst upon him through the windows, after pa.s.sing the dark lumber-room. "I feared I might never see full daylight again."

"Have you any clothes?" asked Duffham. "This coat's in rags."

"I'm sure I don't know whether I have or not," replied Frank. "The coat is all I have had upon me since coming here."

"Becca's a beast," put in Tod. "And I hope Stephen will have his neck stretched."

Eunice Gibbon was nowhere to be seen below. The premises were deserted.

She had made a rush to her brother's, the gamekeeper's lodge, to warn Becca of what was taking place. We started for d.y.k.e Manor, Frank in our midst, leaving the Torr, and its household G.o.ds, including the cackling fowls and the dinnerless pigs, to their fate. Mr. Brandon met us at the second field, and he took Frank's hand in silence.

"G.o.d bless you, lad! So you have been shut up there!"

"And chained to a stake in the wall," cried the Squire.

"Well, it seems perfectly incredible that such a thing should take place in these later days. It reads like an episode of the dark ages."

"Won't we pay out Master Radcliffe for 't!" put in old Jones, at work with his imaginary handcuffs again. "I should say, for my part, it 'ud be a'most a case o' transportation to Botany Bay."

Frank Radcliffe was ensconced within d.y.k.e Manor (sending Mrs. Todhetley into hysterics, for she had known nothing), and Duffham undertook the task of breaking it to Frank's wife. Frank, when his hair should have been trimmed up a little, was to put himself into a borrowed coat and to follow on presently.

Pitchley's Farm and Pitchley's roses lay hot and bright under the summer suns.h.i.+ne. Mr. Duffham went straight in, and looked about for its mistress. In the sitting-rooms, in the kitchen, in the dairy: he and his cane, and could not see her.

"Missis have stepped out, sir," said Sally, who was scrubbing the kitchen table. "A fearful headache she have got to-day."

"A headache, has she!" responded Duffham.

"I don't think she's never without one," remarked Sally, dipping her brush into the saucer of white sand.

"Where's Mr. Skate?"

"Him? Oh, he be gone over to Alcester market, sir."

"You go and find your mistress, Sally, and say I particularly wish to speak with her. Tell her that I have some very good news for her."

Sally left her brush and her sand, and went out with the message. The doctor strolled into the best parlour, and cribbed one of the many roses intruding their blooming beauty into the open window. Mr. Duffham had to exercise his patience. It seemed to him that he waited half-an-hour.

Annet came in at last, saying how sorry she was to have kept him: she had stepped over to see their carter's wife, who was ill, and Sally had only just found her. She wore her morning gown of black and white print, with the small net widow's cap on her bright hair. But for the worn look in her face, the sad eyes, she was just as pretty as ever; and Duffham thought so.

"Sally says you have some good news for me," she observed with a poor, faint smile. "It must be a joke of yours, Mr. Duffham. There's no news that could be good for me."

"Wait till you hear it," said he. "You have had a fortune left you! It is _so good_, Mrs. Frank Radcliffe, that I'm afraid to tell you. You may go into a fit; or do some other foolish thing."

"Indeed no. Nothing can ever have much effect on me again."

"Don't you make too sure of that," said Duffham. "You've never felt quite sure about that death of your husband, up at Dales, have you?

Thought there was something queer about it--eh?"

"Yes," she said. "I have thought it."

"Well, some of us have been looking into it a little. And we find--in short, we are not at all sure that--that Frank did die."

"Oh!"--her hands lifting themselves in agitation--"what is it, sir? You have come to disclose to me that my husband was murdered."

"The contrariness of woman!" exclaimed Duffham, giving the floor a thump with his cane. "Why, Mrs. Frank Radcliffe, I told you as plainly as I could speak, that it was _good_ news I brought. So good, that I hardly thought you could bear it with equanimity. Your husband was _not_ murdered."

Poor Annet never answered a word to this. She only gazed at him.

"And our opinion is that Frank did not die at all; at Dale's, or elsewhere. Some of us think he is alive still, and--now don't you drop down in a heap."

"Please go on," she breathed, turning whiter than her own cap. "I--shall not drop down."

"We have _reason_ to think it, Mrs. Frank. To think that he is alive, and well, and as sane in mind as you'd wish him to be. We believe it, ma'am; we all but know it."