A Tale of a Lonely Parish Part 39

"You seem to forget, Mr. Juxon, that my time is very valuable," he observed.

"Yes--no doubt--but the man's life, Mr. Booley, is valuable too."

"Hardly, I should say," returned the detective coolly. "But since you are so very pressing, I will ask to see the man at once. I can soon tell you whether he will die on the road or not. I have had considerable experience in that line."

"You shall see him, as soon as the doctor comes," replied the squire, shocked at the man's indifference and hardness.

"It certainly cannot hurt him to see me, if he is still unconscious or raving," objected Mr. Booley.

"He might have a lucid moment just when you are there--the fright would very likely kill him."

"That would decide the question of moving him," answered Booley, taking his gla.s.ses from his nose, laying down the paper and rising to his feet.

"There is clearly some reason why you object to my seeing him now. I would not like to insist, Mr. Juxon, but you must please remember that it may be my duty to do so."

The squire was beginning to be angry; even his calm temper was not proof against the annoyance caused by Mr. Booley's appearance at the Hall, but he wisely controlled himself and resorted to other means of persuasion.

"There is a reason, Mr. Booley; indeed there are several very good reasons. One of them is that it might be fatal to frighten the man; another is that at this moment his wife is by his bedside. She has entirely made up her mind that when he is recovered he must return to prison, but at present it would be most unkind to let her know that you are in the house. The shock to her nerves would be terrible."

"Oh," said Mr. Booley, "if there is a lady in the case we must make some allowances, I presume. Only, put yourself in my place, Mr. Juxon, put yourself in my place."

The squire doubted whether he would be willing to exchange his personality for that of Mr. Booley.

"Well--what then?" he said. "I think I would try to be merciful."

"Yes; but suppose that in being merciful, you just allowed that lady the time necessary to present her beloved husband with a convenient little pill, just to shorten his sufferings? And suppose that--"

"Really, Mr. Booley, I think you make very unwarrantable suppositions,"

said Mr. Juxon severely. "I cannot suppose any such thing."

"Many women--ladies too--have done that to save a man from hanging,"

returned Mr. Booley, fixing his grey eye on the squire.

"Hanging?" repeated the latter in surprise. "But G.o.ddard is not to be hanged."

"Of course he is. What did you expect?" Mr. Booley looked surprised in his turn.

"But--what for?" asked the squire very anxiously. "He has not killed anybody--"

"Oh--then you don't know how he escaped?"

"No--I have not the least idea--pray tell me."

"I don't wonder you don't understand me, then," said Mr. Booley. "Well, it is a short tale but a lively one, as they say. Of course it stands to reason in the first place that he could not have got out of Portland. He was taken out for a purpose. You know that after his trial was over, all sorts of other things besides the forgery came out about him, proving that he was altogether a very bad lot. Now about three weeks ago there was a question of identifying a certain person--it was a very long story, with a bad murder case and all the rest of it--commonplace, you know the sort--never mind the story, it will all be in the papers before long when they have got it straight, which is more than I have, seeing that these affairs do get a little complicated occasionally, you know, as such things will." Mr. Booley paused. It was evident that his command of the English tongue was not equal to the strain of constructing a long sentence.

"This person, whom he was to identify, was the person murdered?" inquired Mr. Juxon.

"Exactly. It was not the person, but the person's body, so to say.

Somebody who had been connected with the G.o.ddard case was sure that if G.o.ddard could be got out of prison he could do the identifying all straight. It did not matter about his being under sentence of hard labour--it was a private case, and the officer only wanted G.o.ddard's opinion for his personal satisfaction. So he goes to the governor of Portland, and finds that G.o.ddard had a very good character in that inst.i.tution--he was a little bit of a gay deceiver, you see, and knew how to fetch the chaps in there and particularly the parson. So he had a good character. Very good. The governor consents to send him to town for this private job, under a strong force--that means three policemen--with irons on his hands. When they reached London they put him in a fourwheeler.

Those things are done sometimes, and n.o.body is the wiser, because the governor does it on his own responsibility, for the good of the law, I suppose. I never approved of it. Do you follow me, Mr. Juxon?"

"Perfectly," answered the squire. "He was driven from the station with three policemen in a hackney-coach, you say."

"Exactly so. It was a queer place where the body was--away down in the Minories. Ever been there, Mr. Juxon? Queer place it is, and no mistake.

I would like to show you some little bits of London. Well, as I was saying, the fourwheeler went along, with two policemen inside with G.o.ddard and one on the box. Safe, you would say. Not a bit of it. Just the beggar's luck, too. It was dusk. That is always darker than when the lamps are well going. The fourwheeler ran into a dray-cart, round a corner where they were repairing the street. The horse went down with a smash, shafts, lamp, everything broken to smithereens, as they say. The policeman jumps off the box with the cabby to see what is the matter. One of the bobbies--the policemen I would say--it's a technical term, Mr.

Juxon--gets out of the cab to see what's up, leaving G.o.ddard in charge of the other. Then there is a terrific row; more carts come up, more fourwheelers--everybody swearing at once. Presently the policeman who had got out comes back and looks in to see if everything is straight. Not a bit of it again. Other door of the cab was open and--no G.o.ddard. But the policeman was lying back in the corner and when they struck a light and looked, they found he was stone dead. G.o.ddard had brained him with the irons on his wrists. No one ever saw him from that day to this. He must have known London well--they say he did, and he was a noted quick runner. Being nightfall and rather foggy as it generally is in those parts he got clear off. But he killed the man who had him in charge and if he lives he will have to swing for it. May be Mrs. G.o.ddard does not know that---may be she does. That is the reason I don't want her to be left alone with him. No doubt she is very good and all that, but she might just take it into her head to save the government twenty feet of rope."

"I am very much surprised, and very much shocked," said the squire gravely. "I had no idea of this. But I will answer for Mrs. G.o.ddard.

Why was all this never In the papers--or was there an account of it, Mr.

Booley?"

"Oh no--it was never mentioned. We felt sure that we should catch him and until we did we--I mean the profession--thought it just as well to say nothing. The governor remembered to have read a letter from G.o.ddard's wife, just telling him where she was living, about two years ago. Being harmless, he pa.s.sed it and never copied the address; then he could not remember it. At last they found it in his cell, hidden away somehow. The beggar had kept it."

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon. In the silence which followed, the sound of wheels was heard outside. Doctor Longstreet had arrived.

CHAPTER XXIII.

While Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose were together in the library downstairs, while John Short was waking from the short sleep he had enjoyed, and while the squire was listening in the study to Mr. Booley's graphic account of the convict's escape, Mrs. G.o.ddard was alone with her husband, watching every movement and listening intently to every moaning breath he drew.

In the desperate anxiety for his fate, she forgot herself and seemed no longer to feel fatigue or exhaustion from all she herself had suffered.

She stood long by his bedside, hoping that he might recognise her and yet fearing the moment when he should recover his senses. Then she noticed that the morning sun was pouring in through the window and she drew a curtain across, to shade his eyes from the glare. Whether the sudden changing of the light affected G.o.ddard, as it does sometimes affect persons in the delirium of a brain fever, or whether it was only a natural turn in his condition, she never knew. His expression changed and acquired that same look of strange intelligence which John Short had noticed in the night; the flush sank from his forehead and gave place to a luminous, transparent colour, his eyelids once more moved naturally, and he looked at his wife as she stood beside him, and recognised her. He was weaker now than when he had spoken with John Short six hours earlier, but he was more fully in possession of his faculties for a brief moment. Mary G.o.ddard trembled and felt her hands turn cold with excitement.

"Walter, do you know me now?" she asked very softly.

"Yes," he said faintly, and closed his eyes. She laid her hand upon his forehead; the coldness of it seemed pleasant to him, for a slight smile flickered over his face.

"You are better, I think," she said again, gazing intently at him.

"Mary--it is Mary?" he murmured, slowly opening his eyes and looking up to her. "Yes--I know you--I have been dreaming a long time. I'm so tired--"

"You must not talk," said she. "It will tire you more." Then she gave him some drink. "Try and sleep," she said in a soothing tone.

"I cannot--oh, Mary, I am very ill."

"But you will get well again--"

G.o.ddard started suddenly, and laid his hand upon her arm with more force than she suspected he possessed.

"Where am I?" he asked, staring about the room. "Is this your house, Mary? What became of Juxon?"

"He is not hurt. He brought you home in his arms, Walter, to his own house, and is taking care of you."

"Good heavens! He will give me up. No, no, don't hold me--I must be off"

He made a sudden effort to rise, but he was very weak. He fell back exhausted upon his pillow; his fingers gripped the sheet convulsively, and his face grew paler.