The Prelude to Adventure Part 27

He had a bath, changed his clothes, and sitting before his fire waited.

As he looked around his room he knew that he was leaving it for ever.

What ever might be the issue of his conversation with Rupert, he knew that that at any rate was true; he would never return here again--or he would not return until he had worked out his duty. He looked about him regretfully; he had grown very fond of that room and the things in it--the shape of it, the books, the blue bowls, the bright fire, "Aegidius" (but he would take "Aegidius" with him). He looked last at the photograph of his father, the rocky eyes, the flowing beard, the ma.s.sive shoulders.

It was back to him that he was going, and he would walk all the way.

Walking alone he would listen, he would watch, he would wait, and then, in that great silence, he would be told what he must do.

In the pleasant crackle of the fire, in the shaded light of the lamp, in the starlit silence of the College Courts, there seemed such safety; in his heart there was such happiness; in that moment of waiting for Rupert Craven to come he learnt once and for all that, in very _truth_, there is no gift, no reward, no joy that can equal "the Peace of G.o.d," nor is there any temporal danger, disease or agony that can threaten its power.

As the last notes of the clock in Outer Court striking five died away Rupert Craven came in. If he had seemed tired and worn-out before, now the overwhelming impression that he gave was of an unhappiness from which he seemed to have no outlet. He was young enough to be tormented by the determination to do the right thing; he was young enough to give his whole devotion to his sister; he was young enough to admire, against all determination, Olva's presence and prowess and silence; he was young enough to be haunted, night and day, by the terrors of his imagination; he was young enough to be amazed at finding the world a place of Life and Death; he was young enough finally to be staggered that he personally should be drawn into the struggle.

But now, just now, as he stood in the doorway, he was simply tired, tired out. He pulled himself together with the obvious intention of being cold and fierce and judicial. He had cornered Dune at last, he had driven him to confession, he was a fine fellow, a kind of Fate, the Supreme Judge . . . this is what he doubtless desired to feel; but he wished that Dune had not played so wonderful a game that afternoon, that Dune did not now--at this moment of complete disaster and ruin--look so strangely happy, that he were himself not so utterly wretched and conscious of his own failure to do anything as it ought to be done. He did his best; he refused to sit down, he remained as still as possible, he looked over Dune's head in order to avoid those shining eyes.

The eyes caught him.

"Craven, why have you been badgering the wretched Bunning?"

"I thought you asked me to come here to tell me something--I didn't come to answer questions."

"We'll come to my part of it in a moment. But I think it's only fair to answer me first."

"What have you got to do with Bunning?"

"That's not, immediately, the point. The thing I want to know is, why you should have chosen, during the last week, to go and torment the hapless Bunning until you've all but driven him out of his wits."

"I don't see what it's got to do with you."

"It's got this much to do with me--that he came to me this morning with a story so absurd that it proves that he can't be altogether right in his head. He told me that he had confided this absurd story to you."

There was no answer.

"I don't suppose," Olva went on at last gently, "that we've either of us got very much time, and there's a great deal to be done, so let's go straight to it. Bunning told me this morning that he declared to you yesterday that he--of all people in the world--had murdered Carfax."

"Yes," at last Craven sullenly muttered, "he told me that."

"And of course you didn't believe it?"

"I didn't believe that _he'd_ done it--no. But he knows who _did_ do it.

He's got all the details. Some one has told him."

Craven was trembling. Olva pushed a chair towards him.

"Look here, you'd better sit down."

Craven sat down.

"I know that some one told him," Olva said quietly, "because I told him."

"Then you know who----" Craven's voice was a whisper.

"I know," said Olva, "because it was I who killed Carfax."

Craven took it---the moment for which he'd been waiting so long--in the most amazing way.

"Oh!" he cried, like a child who has cut its finger. "Oh! I wish you hadn't!" There was the whole of Craven's young struggle with an astounding world in that cry.

Then, after that, there was a long silence, and had some one come into the room he would have looked at the two men before the fire and have supposed that they were gently and comfortably falling off to sleep.

Olva at last said; "Of course I know that you have suspected me for a long time. Everything played into your hands. I have done my very utmost to prevent your having positive proof of the thing, but that part of the business is now done with. You know, and you can do what you please with the knowledge."

But, now that the moment had come, Rupert Craven could do nothing with it.

"I don't want to do anything," he muttered at last. "I'm not up to doing anything. I don't understand it. I'm not the sort of fellow who ought to be in this kind of thing at all."

That was how he now saw it, as an unfair advantage that had been taken of him. This point of view changed his position to the extent of his now almost appealing to Olva to help him out of it.

"Your telling me like that has made it all so difficult. I feel now suddenly as though I hated Carfax and hadn't the least objection to somebody doing for him. And _that's_ all wrong--murder's an awful thing--one ought to feel bad about it." Then finally, with the cry of a child in the dark, "But this _isn't_ life, it never _has_ been life since that day I heard of Carfax being killed. It's the sort of thing--it's been for weeks the sort of thing--that you read of in books or see at the Adelphi; and I'm not that kind of fellow. I tell you I've been mad all this last month, getting it on the brain, seeing things night and day. My one idea was to make you own up to it, but I never thought of what was going to happen when you did."

Olva let him work it out.

"Of course I never thought of you for an instant as the man until that afternoon when you talked in your sleep. Then I began to think and I remembered what Carfax had said about your hating him. Then I went with your dog for a walk and we found your matchbox. After that I noticed all sorts of things and, at the same time, I saw that you were in love with Margaret. That made me mad. My sister is everything in the world to me, and it seemed to me that--she should marry a fellow who . . . without knowing! I began to be ill with it and yet I hadn't any real reasons to bring forward. You wanted me to show my cards, but I wouldn't. Sometimes I thought I really _was_ going mad. Then two things made me desperate.

I saw that you had some secret understanding with my mother and I saw--that my sister loved you. We'd always been tremendous pals--we three, and it seemed as though every one were siding against me. I saw Margaret marrying you and mother letting her--although she knew . . .

it was awful--h.e.l.l!"

He pressed his hands together, his voice shook: "I'd never been in anything before--no kind of trouble--and now it seemed to put me right on one side. I couldn't see straight. One moment I hated you, then I admired you, and the oddest thing of all was that I didn't think about the actual thing--your having killed Carfax--at all; everything else was so much more important. I just wanted to be sure that you'd done it and then--for you to go away and never see any of us again."

Olva smiled.

"Yes," he said.

"But it wasn't until the 5th of November--the 'rag' night--that I was quite sure. I knew then, when I saw you hitting that fellow, that you'd killed Carfax. But, of course, that wasn't proof. Then I noticed Bunning. I saw that he was always with you, and of course it was an odd sort of friendship for you to have; I could see, too, that he'd got something on his mind. I went for him--it was all easy enough--and at last he broke down. Then I'd got you----"

"You've got me," said Olva.

Rupert looked him, slowly, in the face. "You're wonderful!" Then he added, almost wistfully, "If Margaret hadn't loved you it wouldn't really any of it have mattered. I suppose that's very immoral, but that's what it comes to. Margaret's everything in the world to me and you must tell her."

"Of course I will tell her," Olva said. "That's what I ought to have done from the beginning. That's what I was _meant_ to do. But I had to be driven to it. What will you do, Craven, if it doesn't matter to her--if she doesn't care whether I killed Carfax or no?"

"At least you'll have told her," the boy replied firmly. "At least she'll know. Then it's for her to decide. She'll do the right thing," he ended proudly.

"And what do you think that is?" Olva asked him.

"I don't know," he answered. "This seems to have altered everything. I ought now to be hating you--I don't. I ought to shudder at the sight of you--I don't. The Carfax business seems to have slipped right back, to be ages ago, not to matter. All I suppose I wanted was to be rea.s.sured about you--if Margaret loved you. And now I _am_ rea.s.sured. I believe you know what to do."

"Yes, I know what to do," said Olva. "I'm going away to-morrow for a long time. I shall always love Margaret--there can never be any one else--but I shall not marry her unless I can come back cleared."

"And who--what--can clear you?"