The Lord of the Sea Part 9

"As you like. But with regard to the gun, I should have thought that you could have guessed how it was--but no, you always mistrust me instead--the Jew. Don't you know that the dead man was a servant in my house? Well, I left the two guns in my study, and he, wanting to shoot himself, stole one, that's all".

"It was _he_ shot himself?"

"Why, who else? You don't suppose Richard shot him! You are as cool as they make them".

"Well, that was how it was! But couldn't you say that at the police-court--?"

"I am _going_ to at the big trial, of course. But I was ill, am ill now, and here have I been running about all day on your brother's behalf, and dead tired--and ill, and all--and you won't let me have a rest in the carriage--"

"Well, as you put it in that way..." she said.

So they walked to a motor-brougham, sat within, and as they commenced to talk again, the brougham moved.

"Tell me", said Frankl, "have you mentioned to anyone that you had given the guns to me?"

"I told Richard's solicitor this morning--"

"That was horribly imprudent, without consulting me!"

"I think I have been silent long enough, don't you? I didn't mention your name, but--"

"Oh, you didn't mention my name! That's all right, then! Look here, do you know--?"

"Well?"

"I believe you love me in your heart. Can't help yourself".

"Oh, Mr. Frankl, do I look as if I was in the mood for that kind of fun to-night, a poor wretch like me, steeped in misery, my G.o.d knows".

"_I_ love _you_!"

He suddenly grasped her wrist, his eyes blazing.

"Stop--let me get out of this--" she said.

"Wait!--I give you your chance!--Listen: I am not a man whose mind you can read right off like a book, I twist like an eel, I am deep, I am tricky, and I never yet met the man that I didn't hoodwink. Ninety-nine per cent of what I say is a lie; even when it is the truth, it is a lie just the same. But at this particular moment I am talking the G.o.d's truth: I want you! You shall be my little girl! Chuck Richard!--chuck the swine's-flesh!--I'll take you right away--to Paris--this very night--"

She had arisen, alarmed by his hissed fury. "But, you are stark, staring, raving mad", she said proudly, "that is what you are".

Frankl struck the side of the brougham, it flew, and Margaret tottered backward with an exclamation. The next moment she sent forth a scream, the grip of Frankl on her wrist agonizing her bones.

"Where are we going?" she cried out.

"I gave you your chance!" was Frankl's fierce answer.

"Let me get out!--you must be a wretch--to take advantage--"

He put his mouth to her ear till it touched. "Your nice Richard flogged me like a dog! I felt the cuts to the marrow of my d.a.m.ned soul! Now I've got him in the hollow of this hand! Why, you helped me! you helped me!

That's good! And I've got you, too".

Blackness and swiftness bound her; a dizziness overcame her. Soon they were by a great pool of gloomy water--Wroxham Broad--where hern, wild duck, and the mast of the darkling boat brooded among bulrush; and now in three minutes more the brougham was sweeping over the lawn of a lonely building, surrounded by walls.

She, peering, saw with joy both lights and a well-dressed man and woman; and, as the carriage stopped, she sprang out with alacrity, Frankl with her, still grasping her wrist.

"Sir", she blurted out at once, "you will help me, I know. I am a poor unfortunate woman--my name is Margaret Hogarth--"

"We know!" said the gentleman, and, approaching Frankl's ear, asked in Yiddish: "How long has she had her delusion?"

"Only about a week, I think. She may be violent at first, but--"

"Come in, Miss--Hogarth", said the gentleman.

Margaret pa.s.sed the threshold; the doors closed upon her...

XII

THE ROSE

On the third morning of his confinement in Norwich, Hogarth was hurried into the hall of justice and the witness-box--in the dock Fred Bates.

Bates had denied--with sufficient impudence, it seemed: for his wife had been found dead, battered and burned about the face, Bates' own hand also burned by the poker with which, _red-hot_, he was presumed to have beaten her.

The same afternoon Bates was sentenced to death: but, having had sunstroke in Egypt, was afterwards reprieved.

And two mornings later Hogarth heard the bar of the prisoner's dock clang behind himself.

The speech of leading counsel for the Crown was short: a letter, found on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had falsely informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister under a certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of pa.s.sion, had hurried from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that his sister had left the chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr. Frankl elsewhere). Under that tree the prisoner had encountered the murdered man, whose Oriental dress on a dark night would give him a resemblance to Mr. Frankl, himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot the deceased, mistaking him for Mr. Frankl, and had been found holding the smoking weapon, which he admitted to be his own. It was a painful case; but the chain of inference was not a.s.sailable.

"Not a.s.sailable" found an echo in the minds of solicitor and counsel for Hogarth, who with growing anxiety were awaiting the coming of Margaret with her story of the weapons. Margaret was where her name was changed to Rachel.

Now was the regime of examining counsel for the prosecution. The usher called: "Baruch Frankl!"

A voice in the gallery shouted: "Caps and ta.s.sels!" while Frankl, in the witness box, bowed largely to both bench and bar. He put his palms on the red-hot rail, caught them up, put them again, caught up, put them; and still he bowed, while a trembling of the chin gave to his beard a downward waving.

"Now explain to the court the reasons for the state of the prisoner's feelings toward you".

"For one thing I had turned him out, because he could not pay his rent; for another, his sister was inclined, my lord, to be a little bit weak on my account--"

"A little bit _what_?" asked his lordship.

"Just a little bit weak, my lord".

"A _reciprocal_ weakness?"