The Laughing Mill and Other Stories Part 20

"However, I realised that this was neither the place nor the hour to enter upon a detailed discussion of our plans. Every moment that Kate remained with me increased her peril, especially if, as she seemed to think was the case, Slurk had despatched her thither. As to his motive in so doing, I had no difficulty in forming an opinion. There was little doubt that he meant to use her as an unconscious cat's-paw to steal the diamonds, as, before, to purloin the papers compromising her father.

Had I been asleep, the device could hardly have failed of success. But as Kate seemed herself not to suspect the real nature of her involuntary errand, I would not additionally distress her by alluding to it; it was enough that it furnished me with a sufficient pretext, had others been wanting, for inflicting chastis.e.m.e.nt on the valet.

"Kate said, in answer to my inquiry as to the proposed time of our starting on the picnic expedition the next day, that it would probably be about eleven in the forenoon; we would, therefore, have ample time to settle the particulars of our scheme before the hour of action arrived.

At parting, she clung to me with peculiar tenderness; nor had I ever loved her so well as that moment, when I looked forward to liberating her for ever from the evil spell that had been blighting her young life.

"After she had gone, I had the curiosity to examine the bolt on the door. The explanation of its mysterious opening proved simple enough.

The screws whereby the socket of the bolt had been fastened to the door-frame had been removed, and the holes so enlarged that they could be slipped in and out without difficulty. Socket and screws had then been replaced, so that the bolt could be shot as readily as before. But the security was only an illusion; for, the latch being turned, a slight push would bring away the socket and screws attached to the bolt; and thus the supposed means of safety be ingeniously used to disguise the real absence thereof.

VIII.

"It occurred to me next morning that, considering the nature of the work that was cut out for me, it might be prudent to depart from my usual custom by leaving the diamonds at home in Christina's charge, as she had herself suggested; and I took the earliest opportunity of mentioning this proposal to Kate. To my surprise she at once expressed a decided dissent from the arrangement, and indeed seemed so much perturbed by it, that I at once relinquished the idea. But I begged her to tell me the reasons of her objection.

"'Not now,' she said hastily; 'I hear papa coming; wait till after breakfast, and then you shall know.'

"We were standing at the gate of the courtyard, breathing the fresh morning air. She left me, and returned to the house, whence Mr.

Birchmore almost immediately issued, and saluted me with more than his usual cordiality. I wondered what his behaviour would have been had he known of the transactions of the past night, or of what was in store for us during the day! He began to talk about Kohlstein, and related several anecdotes of the bandits, by whom it was said formerly to have been inhabited. 'I have been up there more than once,' he remarked, 'and the traces of their occupation are still visible. I remember one feature that particularly impressed me--a narrow cleft or chasm of considerable depth, into which the old fellows are said to have thrown their prisoners when they became refractory.'

"'Would the fall kill them?'

"'I should say not; the bottom seemed full of chopped brushwood and other such rubbish. But no human being could have got out unaided; and probably a day or two's lonely sojourn there would bring the most resolute malcontent to terms. It would be a ghastly fate to fall in there, nowadays, and have one's skeleton fished out again the following year, perhaps, and a sensational paragraph in the newspapers. You young folks must pick your steps carefully to-day.'

"'Forewarned is forearmed!' rejoined I, with a short laugh. Further conversation was cut short by a summons to breakfast. On this occasion Slurk waited at table, and I observed him with more than usual attention and toleration, as one with whom I was so soon to try desperate conclusions. He was certainly a villanous-looking character; but he appeared to be, for reasons best known to himself, in excellent spirits this morning; a circ.u.mstance which stirred up an unwilling kind of compa.s.sion within me, reflecting what a speedy and final end was going to be put to all his possibilities of enjoyment. Vile though his life had been, it was the only one he had.

"Kate likewise had the semblance of unusual gaiety, but I could see that it was either feigned, or the result of nervous excitement. And my judgment was justified when, after breakfast, she overtook me as I was on the way upstairs to my room to make my final preparations, and said, in a voice unsteady with emotion:

"'Tom dear, you asked me why you might not leave your diamonds with Christina. You do not know what danger you were in last night! On my way back to my room I heard--two people talking together, and they mentioned your name; so I stopped and listened. One said: "The bolt is all right: I had better go in and risk it; he'll be certain to be asleep by this time!" And then the other said: "He has his revolver; leave it to me; he believes he can trust me. To-morrow, when he goes out, I'll get him to leave them with me for safety!" and then they both laughed. My darling, this house is a den of thieves!'

"'Were the persons you heard--who were they?'

"'Christina, and that creature she calls her father. Hush! there she comes. She must not see us together;' and in a moment Kate had glided away. I went on up the stairs with a heavy heart. I would almost rather not have heard this last revelation; my confidence in my penetration had received a humiliating shock. To think that Christina's innocent face and modest maidenly air concealed the heart of a thief, or, worse still, of a decoy-duck, was a blow to my vanity as well as to my faith in human nature. How artful she had been, when I fancied her most ingenuous and kind! And then it all at once flashed upon me--what if Heinrich Rudolph himself were in the plot! what if he had written them to be on the look-out for me! and what if Slurk, being secretly in league with him, had contrived to get the Birchmores, and me along with them, into the house, intending to divide the spoil with Herr Rudolph and Christina!

Many signs seemed to point to this as a true deduction from the circ.u.mstances; and even as I was rather grimly considering the matter, a new confirmation of Kate's discovery awaited me. Christina was standing at my room door, and, as I came up, she curtsied and said:

"'I was wishing to speak a moment to Herr Gainsborough, if he would permit me.'

"'What do you want?' I asked somewhat roughly.

"'Does the honoured Herr remember what I said yesterday----?'

"'That you wished me to give you my diamonds for safe keeping? Yes; and I have to answer, that I am not quite so trustful as you seem to think!'

"The scornful and severe tone in which I spoke evidently startled her; but she still affected not to understand. 'It was for Herr Gainsborough's own sake----' she began; but I interrupted her.

"'Do you remember what _I_ said yesterday? that I went armed; well, I am armed to-day, and whoever tries to teach me how to take care of my diamonds may happen to get a bullet instead; so let him beware. If Herr Rudolph is anxious about me, you can tell him that!'

"'Herr Gainsborough will be sorry to have spoken so,' said Christina, colouring deeply, and with tremulous lip.

"'I am sorry to have to say it, Christina. But, can you tell me how the bolt of this door came to be in this condition?' and I pulled out the loose socket as I spoke, and the screws fell to the floor.

"'Indeed I did not know this!' exclaimed she; but the dismay and confusion which were but too plainly visible on her face belied her words.

"'You will understand, however, that a house whose fastenings are so much out of order would not be a proper place to keep treasures in.

Well, good-bye, Christina. I am going to Kohlstein, and probably I shan't spend another night here. When you write to your brother in Paris, you may tell him that the diamonds are quite safe, though they may have been in danger.'

"'Will Herr Gainsborough let me say one word?'

"'It's too late--I have no time,' returned I, with an emphasis all the more coldly contemptuous because of the secret inclination I felt--in view of her youth and prettiness--to be compa.s.sionate and forgiving; and perhaps I was half sorry that she attempted no further self-vindication; but, obeying my gesture of dismissal, pa.s.sed out of the door and down the pa.s.sage, with her bare feet, and her blue eyes downcast, and no backward glance. When she was gone, I shut the door in no enviable mood, and walked to and fro about my room like a surly bull in a pound. For the first (though not for the last) time I heartily cursed the diamonds; they seemed to raise the devil wherever I carried them. In the midst of my anathemas Mr. Birchmore knocked at the door, and told me that everything was ready downstairs for the start.

"'And, by-the-bye, Gainsborough,' he added, with one of his point-blank, icy glances, 'I have arranged that our luggage shall be removed to-day; and if you leave yours here, I advise you to seal it up in my presence.

I found the lock of my door in rather a strange condition this morning.

I have my own opinion of what our landlord may be.'

"'Who recommended you to this place, Mr. Birchmore?' I demanded curtly; for I was getting to feel something like contempt for my intended father-in-law. It was not easy to respect a man who, under whatever stress of circ.u.mstances, allows another man to make a slave of him.

"'It was that fellow Slurk; and he deserves a good horsewhipping for it!' replied Birchmore, thrusting his hands resolutely into his pockets.

"'I think he deserves at least that,' I rejoined with a significant laugh; 'and whenever you're inclined to operate on him, I'll stand by you.'

"Mr. Birchmore said no more, and we went downstairs in silence. Kate was already seated in the carriage; Slurk was on the box, with a large basket containing our provisions for the day beside him. Mr. Birchmore and I took our places--one of us at least with a heavy heart. The landlord stood at the door and nodded us a surly farewell.

"'Where is Christina?' I asked him.

"'She has gone to the town to sell eggs: did the Herr want anything?'

"'I should like to have sent for a screwdriver; but probably I can get one on our way back,' was my answer; and with that we drove away.

"In about half an hour, proceeding by unfrequented roads, we came in sight of Kohlstein. It was a vast four-sided ma.s.s of gray rock, seamed with deep clefts and fissures running horizontally and vertically, so that it appeared to have been built of gigantic blocks of stone. It was considerably over one hundred feet in sheer height, and it stood upon a rising ground of shifting sand. Slender trees grew here and there out of the crevices of its headlong sides, and straggled nakedly along its level summit, outlined against the sky. It was an ideal place for a robber stronghold; impregnable, certainly, to any attack save that of the heaviest modern artillery.

"'We must get out and walk from here,' remarked Mr. Birchmore. 'There's only one way of getting to the top, and that's on the other side. I have got a touch of my rheumatics to-day, and hardly think I shall be able to do the climbing. However, that needn't interfere with you young people, of course.'

"I exchanged a covert look with Kate as I helped her to descend from the carriage; and she pressed my hand and smiled. I admired her courage as much as I lamented the apparent lack of it in her father. The horse having been unharnessed and tethered where some cool gra.s.s grew beside a stream, we struck off across the sandy upland; Slurk carrying the big basket, Mr. Birchmore walking with a rather feeble step near him, and Kate and I in front. It was an even hotter day than yesterday, and the tramp was a wearisome one. By the time we arrived at the foot of the Stein, we were quite ready to rest a few minutes in the shadow of the rock, for coolness and breath.

"'No, I can't do it!' said Mr. Birchmore, wiping his forehead and glancing hopelessly up at the narrow white footpath that seemed to mount almost straight upward to the distant summit. 'Just leave me here, with a few sandwiches and a bottle of hock, and I shall do very comfortably till you come back.'

"It was certainly very arduous work clambering up that ladder-like path, and I doubt whether Kate's determination and mine would have held out, had the motive which urged us been merely one of curiosity. But the top was gained at last, and we threw ourselves down on the dry gra.s.s to rest and to be fanned by the welcome breeze that blew there. Slurk placed the basket in a little hollow where some bushes kept off the direct rays of the sun, and stretched himself at full length beside it.

"'Now, let us walk about,' suggested Kate at length in an undertone; 'we must see what there is to be seen.'

"We had already arranged all the steps by which we were to proceed to the achievement of our purpose, and we felt that the sooner it was ended now the better. The surface on which we stood, though preserving a general level, was full of irregularities and unevennesses; it was overgrown with low bushes and parched gra.s.s, with perhaps half-a-dozen starved and meagre trees. Here and there the naked rock jutted forth from the thin soil, crumbling and weatherworn, its surface stained in places with dry lichens. The entire table was scarcely two-thirds of an acre in area; and a more forlorn and uncongenial spot, even in the midst of summer, it would be hard to find. The cave in which the robbers lived was somewhere lower down; we had pa.s.sed its entrance on our way up; but it was here, probably, that an outlook was kept over the country, to spy out the approach of victims or of enemies. It struck me that it was hardly worth while to be a bandit, if one must put up with such bleak and unattractive quarters in which to carry on the business.

"Kate and I wandered over this barren summit hand in hand. The moment was now very near that was to make a great change in the world for both of us. We felt, somehow, as if we were taking leave of a certain part of our lives then. At least, I remember gazing out across the wide expanse of sunlit country that stretched far away on every side, and wondering whether it would look the same an hour hence. Slurk all the while lay beside his basket, and appeared to be asleep.

"We came to the brow of a sort of shelf or shallow declivity, descending which we found ourselves on a lower level by some six or seven feet; and so much of the area as lay behind us ceased to be visible. Advancing a few paces farther, we paused abruptly on the edge of a dark, profound cleft, which gaped right at our feet. It was so narrow that one might easily leap across it at its widest part; but it was so deep that, for all that I could see, it might descend to the very base of the Stein.

Peering downwards earnestly, however, my eyes, becoming accustomed to the gloom, could dimly discern what seemed to be a bottom at a depth of not more than twenty feet.

"'It's an awful thing to do, after all!' I murmured after a long inspection, looking up at Kate.

"'Are you ready?' was all her answer.