A Perilous Secret Part 59

"Colonel Clifford," said the hypocrite, sadly, "I little thought that I should be made to suffer for the past, since I came here only on an errand of mercy. Yes, sir, in my unregenerate days I was Leonard Monckton. I disgraced the name. But I repented, and when I adopted the sacred calling of a clergyman I parted with the past, name and all. I was that man's clerk; and so," said he, spitefully, and forgetting his sing-song, "was your son Walter Clifford. Was that not so, Mr. Bartley?"

"Don't speak to me, sir," said Bartley. "I shall say nothing to gratify you nor to affront Colonel Clifford."

"Speak the truth, sir," said Colonel Clifford; "never mind the consequences."

"Well, then," said Bartley, very unwillingly, "they _were_ clerks in my office, and this one robbed me."

"One thing at a time," said Monckton. "Did I rob you of twenty thousand pounds, as you robbed Mr. Walter Clifford?"

His voice became still more incisive, and the curtain of the little room opened a little and two eyes of fire looked in.

"Do you remember one fine day your clerk, Walter Clifford, asking you for leave of absence--to be married?"

Bartley turned his back on him contemptuously.

But Colonel Clifford insisted on his replying.

"Yes, he did," said Bartley, sullenly.

"But," said the Colonel, quietly, "he thought better of it, and so--you married her yourself."

This bayonet thrust was so keen and sudden that the villain's self-possession left him for once. His mouth opened in dismay, and his eyes, roving to and fro, seemed to seek a door to escape.

But there was worse in store for him. The curtains were drawn right and left with power, and there stood Grace Clifford, beautiful, but pale and terrible. She marched toward him with eyes that rooted him to the spot, and then she stopped.

"Now hear _me_; for he has tortured me, and tried to kill me. Look at his white face turning ghastly beneath his paint at the sight of me; look at his thin lips, and his devilish eyebrows, and his restless eyes. THIS IS THE MAN THAT BRIBED THAT WRETCH TO FIRE THE MINE!"

These last words, ringing from her lips like the trumpet of doom, were answered, as swiftly as gunpowder explodes at a lighted torch, by a furious yell, and in a moment the room seemed a forest of wild beasts. A score of raging miners came upon him from every side, dragging, tearing, beating, kicking, cursing, yelling. He was down in a moment, then soon up again, then dragged out of the room, nails, fists, and heavy boots all going, stripped to the shirt, screaming like a woman. A dozen a.s.sailants rolled down the steps, with him in the midst of them. He got clear for a moment, but twenty more rushed at him, and again he was torn and battered and kicked. "Police! police!" he cried; and at last the detectives who came to seize him rushed in, and Colonel Clifford, too, with the voice of a stentor, cried, "The law! Respect the law, or you are ruined men."

And so at last the law he had so dreaded raised what seemed a bag of bones: nothing left on him but one boot and fragments of a shirt, ghastly, bleeding, covered with bruises, insensible, and to all appearance dead.

After a short consultation, they carried him, by Colonel Clifford's order, to the Dun Cow, where Lucy, it may be remembered, was awaiting his triumphant return.

CHAPTER XXVI.

STRANGE TURNS.

And yet this catastrophe rose out of a mistake. When the detective asked Jem Davies to watch the lawn, he never suspected that the clergyman was the villain who had been concerned in that explosion. But Davies, a man of few ideas and full of his own wrong, took for granted, as such minds will, that the policeman would not have spoken to him if this had not been _his_ affair; so he and his fellows gathered about the steps and watched the drawing-room. They caught a glimpse of Monckton, but that only puzzled them. His appearance was inconsistent with the only description they had got--in fact opposed to it. It was Grace Clifford's denunciation, trumpet-tongued, that let loose savage justice on the villain. Never was a woman's voice so fatal, or so swift to slay. She would have undone her work. She screamed, she implored; but it was all in vain. The fury she had launched she could not recall. As for Bartley, words can hardly describe his abject terror. He crouched, he shivered, he moaned, he almost swooned; and long after it was all over he was found crouched in a corner of the little room, and his very reason appeared to be shaken. Judge Lynch had pa.s.sed him, but too near. The freezing shadow of Retribution chilled him.

Colonel Clifford looked at him with contemptuous pity, and sent him home with John Baker in a close carriage.

Lucy Monckton was in the parlor of the Dun Cow waiting for her master.

The detectives and some outdoor servants of Clifford Hall brought a short ladder and pailla.s.ses, and something covered with blankets, to the door.

Lucy saw, but did not suspect the truth.

They had a murmured consultation with the landlady. During this Mark Waddy came down, and there was some more whispering, and soon the battered body was taken up to Mark Waddy's room and deposited on his bed. The detectives retired to consult, and Waddy had to break the calamity to Mrs. Monckton. He did this as well as he could; but it little matters how such blows are struck. Her agony was great, and greater when she saw him, for she resisted entirely all attempts to keep her from him. She installed herself at once as his nurse, and Mark Waddy retired to a garret.

A surgeon came by Colonel Clifford's order and examined Monckton's bruised body, and shook his head. He reported that there were no bones broken, but there were probably grave internal injuries. These, however, he could not specify at present, since there was no sensibility in the body; so pressure on the injured parts elicited no groans. He prescribed egg and brandy in small quant.i.ties, and showed Mrs. Monckton how to administer it to a patient in that desperate condition.

His last word was in private to Waddy. "If he ever speaks again, or even groans aloud, send for me. Otherwise--" and he shrugged his shoulders.

Some hours afterward Colonel Clifford called as a magistrate to see if the sufferer had any deposition to make. But he was mute, and his eyes fixed.

As Colonel Clifford returned, one of the detectives accosted him and asked him for a warrant to arrest him.

"Not in his present condition," said Colonel Clifford, rather superciliously. "And pray, sir, why did not you interfere sooner and prevent this lawless act?"

"Well, sir, unfortunately we were on the other side of the house."

"Exactly; you had orders to be in one place, so you must be in another.

See the consequence. The honest men have put themselves in the wrong, and this fellow in the right. He will die a sort of victim, with his guilt suspected only, not proved."

Having thus snubbed the Force, the old soldier turned his back on them and went home, where Grace met him, all anxiety, and received his report.

She implored him not to proceed any further against the man, and declared she should fly the country rather than go into a court of law as witness against him.

"Humph!" said the Colonel; "but you are the only witness."

"All the better for him," said she; "then he will die in peace. My tongue has killed the man once; it shall never kill him again."

About six next morning Monckton beckoned Lucy. She came eagerly to him; he whispered to her, "Can you keep a secret?"

"You know I can," said she.

"Then never let any one know I have spoken."

"No, dear, never. Why?"

"I dread the law more than death;" and he shuddered all over. "Save me from the law."

"Leonard, I will," said she. "Leave that to me."

She wired for Mr. Middleton as soon as possible.

The next day there was no change in the patient. He never spoke to anybody, except a word or two to Lucy, in a whisper, when they were quite alone.

In the afternoon down came Lawyer Middleton. Lucy told him what he knew, but Monckton would not speak, even to him. He had to get hold of Waddy before he understood the whole case.

Waddy was in Monckton's secret, and, indeed, in everybody's. He knew it was folly to deceive your lawyer, so he was frank. Mr. Middleton learned his client's guilt and danger, but also that his enemies had flaws in their armor.

The first shot he fired was to get warrants out against a dozen miners, Jem Davies included, for a murderous a.s.sault; but he made no arrests, he only summoned. So one or two took fright and fled. Middleton had counted on that, and it made the case worse for those that remained. Then, by means of friends in Derby, he worked the Press.

An article appeared headed, "Our Savages." It related with righteous indignation how Mr. Bartley's miners had burned the dead body of a miner suspected of having fired the mine, and put his own life in jeopardy as well as those of others; and then, not content with that monstrous act, had fallen upon and beaten to death a gentleman in whom they thought they detected a resemblance to some person who had been, or was suspected of being that miner's accomplice; "but so far from that," said the writer, "we are now informed, on sure authority, that the gentleman in question is a large and wealthy landed proprietor, quite beyond any temptation to crime or dishonesty, and had actually visited this part of the world only in the character of a peace-maker, and to discharge a very delicate commission, which it would not be our business to publish even if the details had been confided to us."