The Lighted Way Part 60

"Anything wrong, sir?" Arnold asked.

"Has every one taken leave of their senses?" Mr. Weatherley demanded, in a startled tone. "These can't be this morning's letters. They're all about affairs I know nothing of. They're dated--yes, they're all dated July 1. I was here yesterday--I remember signing the cheques--May 4, it was. What the--"

He stopped short. The office boy had performed his duty. Opposite to him stood the great calendar recording the date--July 2 stared him in the face. Mr. Weatherley put his hand to his forehead.

"Come here, Chetwode, quickly," he begged.

Arnold hurried over towards his employer. Mr. Weatherley had lost flesh and there were bags under his eyes. His appearance now was the appearance of a man who has received some terrifying shock. His hands clasped the sides of his chair.

"I'm all right, Chetwode?" he gasped. "I haven't been ill or anything? This isn't a nightmare? The office seems all changed.

You've moved the safe. The letters--I can't understand the letters!

Give me the Day Book, quick."

Arnold pa.s.sed it to him silently. Mr. Weatherley turned over the pages rapidly. At May 4, he stopped.

"Yes, yes! I remember this!" he exclaimed. "Twenty barrels of apples, Spiers & Pond. Fifty hams to Coswell's. I remember this. But what--"

His finger went down the page. He turned over rapidly, page after page. The entries went on. They stopped at June 30. He shrank back in his chair.

"Have I been ill, Chetwode?" he muttered.

Arnold put his arm upon his employer's shoulder.

"Not exactly ill, sir," he said, "but you haven't been here for some time. You went home on May 4--we've none of us seen you since."

There was a silence. Very slowly Mr. Weatherley began to shake his head. He seemed suddenly aged.

"Sit down, Chetwode--sit down quickly," he ordered, in a curious, dry whisper. "You see, it was like this," he went on, leaning over the table. "I heard a noise in the room and down I came. He was hiding there behind a curtain, but I saw him. Before I could shout out to the servants, he had me covered with his revolver. I suppose I'm not much to look at in a black tie and dress coat, wrong thing altogether, I know,--but Fenella was out so it didn't really matter.

Anyway, he took me for the butler. 'It isn't you I want,' he said, 'it's your mistress and the others.' I stared at him and backed toward the door. 'If you move from where you are,' he went on, dropping his voice a little, 'I shall shoot you! Go and stand over in that corner, behind me. It's Mrs. Weatherley I want. Now listen.

There's a ten-pound note in my waistcoat pocket. I'll give it to you to go and fetch her. Tell her that an old friend has called and is waiting to see her. You understand? If you go and don't bring her back--if you give the alarm--you'll wake up one night and find me by your bedside, and you'll be sorry.' You see, I remember every word he said, Chetwode--every word."

"Go on, please!" Arnold exclaimed, breathlessly.

Mr. Weatherley nodded slowly.

"Yes," he said, "I shall tell you all about it. I remember every word that was spoken; I can see the man at this moment. I didn't move from where I was, but I was a little annoyed at being taken for Groves, and I told him so. 'If you're a burglar,' I said, 'you've found your way into trouble. I'm the master of the house and Mrs.

Weatherley is my wife. Perhaps you'll tell me now what you want with her?' He looked at me and I suppose he decided that I was telling the truth. 'Your wife,' he said slowly, 'is looking for trouble. I'm not sure that it hasn't come. You know she was a friend of Rosario--Rosario the Jew?' 'I know that they were acquainted,' I said. He laughed then, and I began to hate the fellow, Chetwode.

'It was your wife,' he said, 'for whom Rosario wanted that t.i.tle.

She could have stopped him--' Then he broke off, Chetwode. 'But I don't suppose you understand these things,' he said. 'You'd better just understand this, though. I am here to have a little explanation with Mrs. Weatherley. I have a message for her, and she's got to hear it from my own lips. When I've finished with her, I want her brother, and when I've finished with him, I want the young man who was here the other night. It's no good saying he's not here now, because I saw him start.'"

Mr. Weatherley paused and felt his forehead.

"All the time, Chetwode," he went on, "I was watching the fellow, and it began to dawn upon me that he was there to do her some mischief. I didn't understand what it was all about but I could see it in his face. He was an ill-looking ruffian. I remembered then that Fenella had been frightened by some one hanging about the house, more than once. Well, there he was opposite to me, Chetwode, and by degrees I'd been moving a little nearer to him. He was after mischief--I was sure of it. What should you have done, Chetwode?"

"I am not quite sure," Arnold answered. "What did you do?"

"We're coming to that," Mr. Weatherley declared, leaning a little forward. "We're coming to that. Now in that open case, close to where I was, my wife had some South American curios. There was a funny wooden club there. The end was quite as heavy as any lead. I caught hold of it and rushed in upon him. You see, Chetwode, I was quite sure that he meant mischief. If Fenella had come in, he might have hurt her."

"Exactly," Arnold agreed. "Go on, sir."

"Well, I gripped the club in my right hand," Mr. Weatherley explained, seizing a ruler from the table, "like this, and I ran in upon him. I took him rather by surprise--he hadn't expected anything of the sort. He had one shot at me and missed. I felt the bullet go scorching past my cheek--like this."

Mr. Weatherley struck the side of his face sharply with the flat of his hand.

"He had another go at me but it was too late,--I was there upon him.

He held out his arm but I was too quick. I didn't seem to hit very hard the first time but the club was heavy. His foot slipped on the marble hearthstone and he went. He fell with a thud. Have you ever killed a man, Chetwode?"

"Never, sir," Arnold answered, his voice shaking a little.

"Well, I never had before," Mr. Weatherley went on. "It really seems quite amazing that that one blow right on the head should have done it. He lay there quite still afterwards and it made me sick to look at him. All the time, though, I kept on telling myself that if I had not been there he would have hurt Fenella. That kept me quite cool.

Afterwards, I put the club carefully back in the case, pushed him a little under the sofa, and then I stopped to think for a moment. I was quite clever, Chetwode. The window was open through which the man had come, so I locked the door on the inside, stepped out of the window, came in at the front door with my latchkey, crept upstairs, undressed quickly and got into bed. The funny part of it all was, Chetwode," he concluded, "that n.o.body ever really found the body."

"You don't suppose that you could have dreamed it all, do you?"

Arnold asked.

Mr. Weatherley laughed contemptuously.

"What an absurd idea!" he exclaimed. "What a perfectly absurd idea!

Besides, although it did disappear, they came up and told me that there was a man lying in the boudoir. You understand now how it all happened," he went on. "It seemed to me quite natural at the time.

Still, when the morning came I realized that I had killed a man.

It's a horrid thing to kill a man, Chetwode!"

"Of course it is, sir," Arnold said, sympathetically. "Still, I don't see what else you could have done."

Mr. Weatherley beamed.

"I am glad to hear you say that, Chetwode," he declared, "very glad.

Still, I didn't want to go to prison, you know, so a few days afterwards I went away. I meant to hide for quite a long time. I--I don't know what I'm doing back here."

He looked around the office like a trapped animal.

"I didn't mean to come back yet, Chetwode!" he exclaimed. "Don't leave me! Do you hear? Don't leave me!"

"Only for one second, sir," Arnold replied, taking an invoice from the desk. "They are wanting this in the warehouse."

Arnold stepped rapidly across to Mr. Jarvis's desk.

"Telephone home for his wife to come and bring a doctor," he ordered. "Quick!"

"He's out of his mind!" Jarvis gasped.

"Stark mad," Arnold agreed.

When he re-entered the office, Mr. Weatherley was sitting muttering to himself. Arnold came over and sat opposite to him.

"Mrs. Weatherley is calling round presently, sir," he announced.

"You'll be glad to see her again."

Mr. Weatherley went deadly pale.