Gwen Wynn Part 49

Seating himself on the mid thwart, he takes up the oars, and pulls towards the place lately occupied by the skiff of the waterman. When inside the cove, he lights a match, and holds it close to the face of the rock where Ryecroft held his lamp. It burns out, and he draws a second across the sand-paper; this to show him the broken branches of the juniper, which he also takes in hand and examines--soon also dropping them, with a look of surprise, followed by the exclamatory phrases--

"Prodigiously strange! I see his drift now. Cunning fellow! On the track he has discovered the trick, and 'twill need another trick to throw him off it. This bush must be uprooted--destroyed."

He is in the act of grasping the juniper, to pluck it out by the roots.

A dwarf thing, this could be easily done. But a thought stays him--another precautionary forecast, as evinced by his words--

"That won't do."

After repeating them, he drops back on the boat's thwart, and sits for a while considering, with eyes turned toward the cliff, ranging it up and down.

"Ah!" he exclaims at length, "the very thing; as if the devil himself had fixed it for me! That _will_ do; smash the bush to atoms--blot out everything, as if an earthquake had gone over Llangorren."

While thus oddly soliloquising, his eyes are still turned upward, apparently regarding a ledge which, almost loose as a boulder, projects from the bank above. It is directly over the juniper, and if detached from its bed, as it easily might be, would go crashing down, carrying the bush with it.

And that same night it does go down. When the morning sun lights up the cliff, there is seen a breakage upon its face just underneath the summer-house. Of course, a landslip, caused by the late rains acting on the decomposed sandstone. But the juniper bush is no longer there; it is gone, root and branch!

CHAPTER L.

REASONING BY a.n.a.lYSIS.

Captain Ryecroft's start at seeing a woman within the pavilion was less from surprise than an emotion due to memory. When he last saw his betrothed alive, it was in that same place, and almost in a similar att.i.tude--leaning over the bal.u.s.ter rail. Besides, many other souvenirs cling around the spot, which the sight vividly recalls; and so painfully, that he at once turns his eyes away from it, nor again looks back. He has an idea who the woman is, though personally knowing her not, nor ever having seen her.

The incident agitates him a little; but he is soon calm again, and for some time after sits silent--in no dreamy reverie, but actively cogitating, though not of it or her. His thoughts are occupied with a discovery he has made in his exploration just ended. An important one, bearing on the suspicion he had conceived almost proving it correct. Of all the facts that came before the coroner and his jury, none more impressed them, nor perhaps so much influenced their finding, as the tale-telling traces upon the face of the cliff. Nor did they arrive at their conclusion with any undue haste or light deliberation. Before deciding, they had taken boat, and from below more minutely inspected them. But with their first impression unaltered--or only strengthened--that the abrasions on the soft sandstone rock were made by a falling body, and the bush borne down by the same. And what but the body of Gwendoline Wynn? Living or dead, springing off, or pitched over, they could not determine. Hence the ambiguity of their verdict.

Very different the result reached by Captain Ryecroft after viewing the same. In his Indian campaigns, the ex-cavalry officer, belonging to the "Light," had his share of scouting experience. It enables him to read "sign" with the skill of trapper or prairie hunter; and on the moment his lamp threw its light against the cliff's face, he knew the scratches were not caused by anything that came _down_, since they had been _made from below_! And by some blunt instrument, as the blade of a boat oar.

Then the branches of the juniper. Soon as getting his eyes close to them, he saw they had been broken _inward_, their drooping tops turned _toward_ the cliff, not _from_ it! A falling body would have bent them in an opposite direction, and the fracture been from the upper and inner side! Everything indicated their having been crushed from below--not by the same boat's oar, but likely enough by the hands that held it!

It was on reaching this conclusion that Captain Ryecroft gave involuntary utterance to the exclamatory words heard by him lying flat among the ferns above, the last one sending a thrill of fear through his heart.

And upon it the ex-officer of Hussars is still reflecting as he returns up stream.

Since the command given to Wingate to row him back, he has not spoken, not even to make remark about that suggestive thing seen in the summer-house above--though the other has observed it also. Facing that way, the waterman has his eyes on it for a longer time. But the bearing of the Captain admonishes him that he is not to speak till spoken to; and he silently tugs at his oars, leaving the other to his reflections.

These are, that Gwendoline Wynn has been surely a.s.sa.s.sinated, though not by being thrown over the cliff. Possibly not drowned at all, but her body dropped into the water where found--conveyed thither after life was extinct! The scoring of the rock and the snapping of the twigs, all that done to mislead, as it had misled everybody but himself. To him it has brought conviction that there has been a deed of blood--done by the hand of another. "No accident--no suicide--murdered!"

He is not questioning the fact, nor speculating upon the motive now. The last has been already revolved in his mind, and is clear as daylight. To such a man as he has heard Lewin Murdock to be, an estate worth 10,000 a year would tempt to crime, even the capital one, which certainly he has committed. Ryecroft only thinks of how he can prove its committal--bring the deed of guilt home to the guilty one. It may be difficult--impossible; but he will do his best.

Embarked in the enterprise, he is considering what will be the best course to pursue--pondering upon it. He is not the man to act rashly at any time, but in a matter of such moment caution is especially called for. He is already on the track of a criminal who has displayed no ordinary cunning, as proved by that misguiding sign. A false move made, or word spoken in careless confidence, by exposing his purpose, may defeat it. For this reason he has. .h.i.therto kept his intention to himself--not having given a hint of it to any one.

From Jack Wingate it cannot be longer withheld, nor does he wish to withhold it. Instead, he will take him into his confidence, knowing he can do so with safety. That the young waterman is no prating fellow he has already had proof, while of his loyalty he never doubted.

First, to find out what Jack's own thoughts are about the whole thing.

For since their last being in a boat together, on that fatal night, little speech has pa.s.sed between them. Only a few words on the day of the inquest, when Captain Ryecroft himself was too excited to converse calmly, and before the dark suspicion had taken substantial shape in his mind.

Once more opposite the poplar, he directs the skiff to be brought to.

Which done, he sits just as when that sound startled him on return from the ball--apparently thinking of it, as in reality he is.

For a minute or so he is silent; and one might suppose he listened, expecting to hear it again. But no; he is only, as on the way down, making note of the distance to the Llangorren grounds. The summer-house he cannot now see, but judges the spot where it stands by some tall trees he knows to be beside it.

The waterman observing him, is not surprised when at length asked the question,--

"Don't you believe, Wingate, the cry came from above--I mean from the top of the cliff?"

"I'm a'most sure it did. I thought at the time it comed from higher ground still--the house itself. You remember my sayin' so, Captain; and that I took it to be some o' the sarvint girls shoutin' up there."

"I do remember--you did. It was not, alas! but their mistress."

"Yes; she for sartin, poor young lady! We now know that."

"Think back, Jack! Recall it to your mind; the tone, the length of time it lasted--everything. Can you?"

"I can, an' do. I could all but fancy I hear it now!"

"Well, did it strike you as a cry that would come from one falling over the cliff--by accident, or otherwise?"

"It didn't; an' I don't yet believe it wor--accydent or no accydent."

"No! What are your reasons for doubting it?"

"Why, if it had a been a woman eyther fallin' over or flung, she'd ha'

gied tongue a second time--ay, a good many times--'fore getting silenced. It must ha' been into the water, an' people don't drown at the first goin' down. She'd ha' riz to the surface once, if not twice; an'

screeched sure. We couldn't ha' helped hearin' it. Ye remember, Captain, 'twor dead calm for a spell just precedin' the thunderstorm. When that cry come, ye might ha' heerd the leap o' a trout a quarter mile off. But it worn't repeated--not so much as a mutter."

"Quite true. But what do you conclude from its not having been?"

"That she who gied the shriek wor in the grasp o' somebody when she did it, an' wor silenced instant by bein' choked or smothered; same as they say's done by them scoundrels called garroters."

"You said nothing of this at the inquest?"

"No, I didn't, for several reasons. One, I wor so took by surprise, just home, an' hearin' what had happened. Besides, the crowner didn't question me on my feelin's--only about the facts o' the case. I answered all his questions, clear as I could remember, an' far's I then understood things; but not as I understand them now."

"Ah! you have learnt something since?"

"Not a thing, Captain--only what I've been thinkin' o', by rememberin' a circ.u.mstance I'd forgot."

"What?"

"Well, whiles I wor sittin' in the skiff that night, waitin' for you to come, I heerd a sound different from the hootin' o' them owls."

"Indeed! What sort of sound?"

"The plashing o' oars. There wor sartin another boat about there besides this one."

"In what direction did you hear them?"