A Terrible Secret Part 12

"Don't ask me," Lady Helena answered, helplessly. "I don't know. I feel stunned and stupid with all these horrors."

"The police are here," Miss Catheron went on, "and the coroner has been apprised. I suppose, they will hold an inquest to-morrow."

Her aunt looked at her in surprise. The calm, cold tone of her voice grated on her sick heart.

"Have you seen _him_?" she asked almost in a whisper. "Inez--I fear--I fear it is turning his brain."

Miss Catheron's short, scornful upper lip, curled with the old look of contempt.

"The Catheron brain was never noted for its strength. I shall not be surprised at all. Poor wretch!" She turned away and looked out into the darkness. "It does seem hard on him."

"Who can have done it?"

The question on every lip rose to Lady Helena's, but somehow she could not utter it. Did Inez know of the dark, sinister suspicion against herself? _Could_ she know and be calm like this?

"I forgot to ask for Uncle G.o.dfrey," Inez's quiet voice said again.

"Of course he is better, or even at such a time as this you would not be here?"

"He is better, Inez," she broke out desperately. "Who can have done this? She had not an enemy in the world. Is--is there any one suspected?"

"There is," Inez answered, turning from the window, and facing her aunt. "The servants suspect _me_."

"Inez!"

"Their case isn't a bad one as they make it out," pursued Miss Catheron, cooly. "There was ill blood between us. It is of no use denying it. I hated her with my whole heart. I was the last person seen coming out of the room, fifteen minutes before they found her dead. Jane Pool says I refused to let her go in--perhaps I did. It is quite likely. About an hour previously we had a violent quarrel. The ubiquitous Mrs. Pool overheard that also. You see her case is rather a strong one."

"But--Inez--!"

"I chanced to overhear all this," still went on Miss Catheron, quietly, but with set lips and gleaming eyes. "Jane Pool was holding forth to the inspector of police. I walked up to them, and they both slunk away like beaten curs. Orders have been issued, that no one is to leave the house. To-morrow these facts are to be placed before the coroner's jury. If they find me guilty--don't cry, Aunt Helena--I shall be sorry for _you_--sorry I have disgraced a good old name. For the rest, it doesn't much matter what becomes of such a woman as I am."

She turned again to the window and looked out into the darkness. There was a desperate bitterness in her tone that Lady Helena could not understand.

"Good Heaven!" she burst forth, "one would think you were all in a conspiracy to drive me mad. It doesn't matter, what becomes of you, doesn't it? I tell you if this last worst misery falls upon us, it will kill me on the spot; just that."

The girl sighed drearily.

"Kill you, Aunt Helena," she repeated, mournfully. "No--we don't any of us die so easily. Don't be afraid--I am not likely to talk in this way before any one but you. I am only telling you the truth. They will have the inquest, and all that Jane Pool can say against me will be said. Do you think Victor will be able to appear?"

"I don't think Victor is in a condition to appear at an inquest or anywhere else. Ah, poor boy! he loved her so dearly, it is enough to shake the mind of a stronger man."

But Miss Catheron was dead silent--it was evident her feelings here were as bitter as ever--that even the tragic death of her rival had not softened her.

"He will survive it," she answered, in the same half-contemptuous tone.

"Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

"Inez," said her aunt, suddenly coming a step nearer, "a rumor has reached me--is it true?--that Juan is back--that he has been here?"

"It is quite true," her niece answered, without turning round; "he _has_ been here. He was here on the night Lady Catheron first came."

"There is another rumor afloat, that there was a violent quarrel on that occasion--that he claimed to be an old lover of Ethel's, poor child, and that Victor turned him out. Since then it is said he has been seen more than once prowling about the grounds. For everybody's sake I hope it is not true."

Inez faced round suddenly--almost fiercely.

"And what if I say it _is_ true, in every respect? He did come--there was a quarrel, and Victor ordered him out. Since then he has been here--prowling, as you call it--trying to see me, trying to force me to give him money. I was flinty as usual, and would give him none.

Where is the crime in all that?"

"Has he gone?" was Lady Helena's response.

"I believe so--I hope so. He had nothing to stay for. Of course he has gone."

"I am glad of that, at least. And now, as it seems I can do nothing more at present, I will return home. Watch Victor, Inez--he needs it, believe me. I will return at the earliest possible moment to-morrow."

So, in the chill gray of the fast-coming morning, Lady Helena, very heavy-hearted, returned to Powyss Place and her sick husband's bedside.

Meantime matters were really beginning to look dark for Miss Catheron.

The superintendent of the district, Mr. Ferrick, was filling his note-book with very ominous information. She had loved Sir Victor--she had hated Sir Victor's wife--they had led a cat-and-dog life from the first--an hour before the murder they had had a violent quarrel--Lady Catheron had threatened to make her husband turn her out of the house on the morrow. At eight o'clock, Jane Pool had left the nursery with the baby, my lady peacefully asleep in her chair--the Eastern poniard on the table. At half-past eight, returning to arouse my lady, she had encountered Miss Inez coming out of the nursery, and Miss Inez had ordered her sharply away, telling her my lady was still asleep. A quarter of nine, Ellen, the maid, going to the room, found my lady stone dead, stabbed through the heart. Miss Inez, when summoned by Hooper, is ghastly pale at first, and hardly seems to know what she is doing or saying. A very pretty case of tragedy in high life, Superintendent Ferrick thinks, pursing up his lips with professional zest, and not the first murder jealousy has made fine ladies commit, either. Now if that Turkish dagger would only turn up.

Two policemen are sent quietly in search of it through the grounds. It isn't likely they'll find it, still it will do no harm to try. He finds out which are Miss Catheron's rooms, and keeps his official eye upon them. He goes through the house with the velvet tread of a cat.

In the course of his wanderings everywhere, he brings up presently in the stables, and finds them untenanted, save by one lad, who sits solitary among the straw. He is rather a dull-looking youth, with a florid, vacant face at most times, but looking dazed and anxious just now. "Something on _his_ mind," thinks the superintendent, and sits sociably down on a box beside him at once.

"Now, my man," Mr. Ferrick says, pleasantly, "and what is it that's troubling _you_? Out with it--every little's a help in a case like this."

The lad--his name is Jimmy--does not need pressing--his secret has been weighing uneasily upon him for the last hour or more, ever since he heard of the murder, in fact, and he pours his revelation into the superintendent's eager ear. His revelation is this:

Last evening, just about dusk, strolling by chance in the direction of the Laurel walk, he heard voices raised and angry in the walk--the voices of a man and a woman. He had peeped through the branches and seen my lady and a very tall man. No, it wasn't Sir Victor--it was a much bigger man, with long black curling hair. Didn't see his face. It was dark in there among the trees. Wasn't sure, but it struck him it might be the tall, black-avised man, who came first the night Sir Victor brought home my lady, and who had been seen skulking about the park once or twice since. Had heard a whisper, that the man was Miss Inez's brother--didn't know himself. All he did know was, that my lady and a man were quarrelling on the evening of the murder in the Laurel walk. What were they quarrelling about? Well, he couldn't catch their talk very well--it was about money he thought. The man wanted money and jewels, and my lady wouldn't give 'em. He threatened to do something or tell something; then _she_ threatened to have him put in Chesholm jail if he did. He, Jimmy, though full of curiosity, was afraid the man would spring out and catch him, and so at that juncture he came away. There! that was all, if it did the gentleman any good, he was welcome to it.

It did the gentleman a world of good--it complicated matters beautifully. Five minutes ago the case looked dark as night for Miss Catheron--here was a rift in her sky. Who was this man--_was_ it Miss Catheron's scapegrace brother? Jimmy could tell him nothing more.

"If you wants to find out about Miss Inez' brother," said Jimmy, "you go to old Hooper. _He_ knows. All _I_ know is, that they say he was an uncommon bad lot; but old Hooper, he's knowed him ever since he was a young'un and lived here. If old Hooper says he wasn't here the night Sir Victor brought my lady home, don't you believe him--he was, and he's been seen off and on in the grounds since. The women folks in the servants' hall, they say, as how he must have been an old sweetheart of my lady's. You go to old Hooper and worrit it out of him."

Mr. Superintendent Ferrick went. How artfully he began his work, how delicately and skillfully he "pumped" old Hooper dry, no words can tell. Mr. Juan Catheron _was_ an "uncommon bad lot," he had come to the house and forced an entrance into the dining-room the night of Lady Catheron's arrival--there had been a quarrel, and he had been compelled to leave. Bit by bit this was drawn from Mr. Hooper. Since then, Jackson, the head groom, and Edwards, the valet, had seen him hovering about the grounds watching the house.

Mr. Ferrick ponders these things in his heart, and is still. This vagabond, Juan Catheron, follows my lady to Catheron Royals, is expelled, haunts the grounds, and a man answering to his description is discovered quarrelling with my lady, demanding money, etc., two or three hours before the murder. The window of the room, in which she takes that fatal sleep, opens on the lawn; any one may enter who sees fit. No one is about. The Oriental dagger lies convenient to his hand on the table. "Here, now," says Mr. Ferrick _to_ Mr. Ferrick, with a reflective frown, "which is guilty--the brother or sister?"

He goes and gives an order to one of his men, and the man starts in search of Mr. Juan Catheron. Mr. Catheron must be found, though they summon the detectives of Scotland Yard to aid them in their search.

The dull hours wear on--the new day, sunny and bright, is with them.

The white drawing-room is darkened--the master of Catheron Royals sits there alone with his dead. And presently the coroner comes, and talks with the superintendent, and they enter softly and look at the murdered lady. The coroner departs again--a jury is summoned, and the inquest is fixed to begin at noon next day in the "Mitre" tavern at Chesholm.

Lady Helena returns and goes at once to her nephew. Inez, in spite of her injunctions, has never been near him once. He sits there still, as she left him many hours ago; he has never stirred or spoken since.

Left to himself he is almost apathetic in his quiet--he rouses into fury, when they strive to take him away. As the dusk falls, Lady Helena, pa.s.sing the door, hears him softly talking to the dead, and once--oh, pitiful Heaven! she hears a low, blood-chilling laugh. She opens the door and goes in. He is kneeling besides the sofa, holding the stark figure in his arms, urging her to get up and dress.

"It is a lovely night, Ethel," he says; "the moon is shining, and you know, you like to walk out on moonlight nights. Do you remember, love, those nights at Margate; when we walked together first on the sands?

Ah! you never lay like this, cold and still, then. Do get up, Ethel!"

petulantly this; "I am tired of sitting here and waiting for you to awake. You have slept long enough. Get up!"

He tries to lift her. Horror struck, Lady Helena catches him in time to prevent it.

"Victor, Victor!" she cries, "for the love of Heaven put her down.