Lawrence Clavering Part 32

"And how is little Dorothy Curwen?" he asked, with a lazy, contemptuous smile.

I sprang out of my seat, stung by the contempt rather than the surprise his words were like to arouse in me. And this, I think, he perceived, for he laughed to himself. Whereupon I felt my face flush; and that too he noted, and laughed again.

"Then you knew," I exclaimed, recovering myself--"you knew where I was sheltered!"

"A gentleman riding down Gillerthwaite at three o'clock of the morning is a sufficiently rare a sight to attract attention. I believe that, luckily, the shepherd who saw you only gossiped to a tenant of Blackladies."

I remembered the flock of sheep which I had seen scared up the hillside across the valley. But it was on my return from Keswick that I had been remarked--no later than a day after Rookley had striven to encompa.s.s my arrest.

"The news," said I, very slowly, "came to you in a roundabout fashion, and took, I suppose, some time in the coming. I infer, therefore, that it came to your ears after the Earl of Mar had risen in Scotland."

I was leaning upon the mantel-piece, looking down into his face, on which the fire shone with a full light; and just for a moment his face changed, the slightest thing in the world, but enough to a.s.sure me that my conjecture was right.

"There are inferences, my good cousin," he said sharply, "which it is not over-prudent for a man so delicately circ.u.mstanced as yourself to draw."

There was a note of disappointment in his tone, as though he would fain have hoodwinked me still into the belief that he stood my friend.

And it suddenly occurred to me that there was a new danger in this knowledge of his--a danger which threatened not so much me as the people who had sheltered me. I resumed accordingly in a more amicable tone:

"It was not, however, of my whereabouts that I came hither to speak to you, but of the whereabouts of Mr. Herbert."

"Mr. Herbert?" says he, playing surprise. "What should I know of Mr.

Herbert? Now, if I was to ask you the whereabouts of Mrs. Herbert, there would be some sense in the question, eh?" and he chuckled cunningly and poked a forefinger into my ribs. I struck the hand aside.

"What, indeed, should you know of Mr. Herbert," I cried--"you that plotted his arrest!"

"Arrest?" he interrupted, yet more dumfounded. "Plot?"

"That is the word," said I--"plot! a simple word enough, though with a d.a.m.ned dirty underhand meaning."

"Ah," he returned, with a sneer, "you take that interest in the husband, it appears, which I imagined you to have reserved for his wife. But as for plots and arrests--why, I know no more of what you mean than does the Khan of Crim Tartary."

"Then," said I, "will you tell me why you paid a visit to Mr. Herbert the night before he was arrested? And why you told him that if he came to Blackladies on the afternoon of the next day he would find Mrs.

Herbert and myself in the garden?"

It was something of a chance shot, for I had no more than suspicion to warrant me, but it sped straight to its mark. Rookley started back in his chair, huddling his body together. Then he drew himself erect, with a certain defiance.

"But zounds, man!" he exclaimed, like one exasperated with perplexity, "what maggot's in your brains? Why should I send Herbert--devil take the fellow!--to find you in the garden when I knew you would not be there?"

"And I can answer that question with another," said I. "Who were in the garden at the time Mr. Herbert was to discover us?"

"The gardeners, I suppose," said he, thrusting his wig aside to scratch his head.

"It is a queer kind of gardener that wears b.u.t.tons of this sort," said I; and I pulled the b.u.t.ton from my pocket, and held it before his eyes in the palm of my hand.

He bent forward, examined the b.u.t.ton, and again looked at me inquiringly.

"I picked it up," I explained, "on a little plot of trampled gra.s.s in the Wilderness on the next morning."

Rookley burst into a laugh and slapped his thighs.

"Lord! Mr. Clavering," he cried, and rising from his chair he walked briskly about the room, "your b.u.t.ton is something too small to carry so weighty an accusation."

"Nay," I answered, smiling in my turn, "the b.u.t.ton, though small, is metal solid enough. It depends upon how closely it is sewn to the cloth of my argument It is true that I picked up the b.u.t.ton on the morning that the soldiers came for me, but I was in the house on the afternoon before, and I saw----"

Jervas Rookley stopped in his walk, and his laughter ceased with the sound of his steps.

"You were in the house?" His mouth so worked that he p.r.o.nounced the words awry. "You were in the house?"

"In the little parlour which gives on to the terrace."

Had I possessed any doubt before as to his complicity, the doubt would have vanished now. He reeled for a moment as if he had been struck, and the blood mottled in his cheeks.

"The house-door may be left open for one man, but two men may enter it," said I.

"You saw?" He took a step round the table and leaned across the corner of it. "What did you see?"

I took up a lighted candle from the table.

"I will show you," said I, and walked to the door.

He followed me, at first with uncertain steps. The steps grew firm behind my back.

They seemed to me significant of a growing purpose--so in the hall I stopped.

"We are good cousins, you and I," said I, holding the candle so that the flame lighted his face.

"Without a doubt," says he, readily. "You begin to see that you have mistaken me."

"I was thinking rather," said I, "that being good cousins, we might walk arm-in-arm."

"I should count it an honour," said he, with a bow.

"And it will certainly be a relief to me," said I. And accordingly I took his arm.

We crossed the hall into the parlour. The window stood open, as I had left it, with the curtains half drawn. Rookley busily pushed them back while I set the candle down. The sky had cleared during the last half hour, and the moon, which was in its fourth quarter, hung like a globe above the garden.

"I met Mr. Herbert in the hall," said I, "just outside this room. We had some talk--of a kind you can imagine. He went down the steps with his sword drawn. There he dropped his cloak, there he slashed at the bushes. Between those two trees he pa.s.sed out of sight. I stepped out into the terrace to follow him, but before I had reached the flight of steps, I heard a pistol crack and saw a little cloud of smoke hang above the bushes there. I found the b.u.t.ton the next morning at the very spot, and near the b.u.t.ton, the pistol. It was Mr. Herbert's pistol. That," said I, "is my part of the story. But perhaps if we go back to the warmer room you will give me your part. For I take it that you were not in the house, else you would have heard my voice, but rather in the garden. You made a great mistake in not looking towards the terrace, my cousin." And again I took his arm, and we walked back.

I was, indeed, rather anxious to discover the whereabouts of Rookley during that afternoon, since so far I had been able to keep Mrs.

Herbert's name entirely out of the narrative. If Jervas Rookley had been in the garden during the afternoon, and had only returned to the house in time to intercept Lord Derwent.w.a.ter's letter concerning the French King's health, and had thereupon ridden off to apply for a warrant against me, why, there was just a chance that I might save Mrs. Herbert from figuring in the business at all.

Rookley said nothing until we were got back into the dining-room, but walked thoughtfully, his arm in mine. I noticed that he was carrying in his left hand the cord by which the curtains in the little parlour were fastened. He stood swinging it to and fro mechanically.

"Your suspicions," said he, "discompose me. They discompose me very much. I gave you credit for more generosity;" and lifting up the brandy bottle, he held it with trembling hands betwixt himself and the candle.

"I am afraid that it is empty," said I.

"If you will pardon me," said he, "I will even fetch another."