Witness to the Deed Part 62

"Quite upset your friend, sir. Why, he turned ghastly; couldn't have looked worse if we'd found the--"

"Exactly. Bad health," said Guest hurriedly. "Good-night."

And he closed both doors; and then, with a peculiar sensation of shrinking, turned to face Stratton where he stood by the fireplace.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

GUEST'S SUGGESTION.

Stratton did not move, but stood as if lost in thought, while involuntarily Guest's eyes were directed toward the door on his left.

A key had always been visible, in old times, by the handle--a key about which Guest had bantered his friend and cut jokes in which the spirit-stand and Mrs Brade's name were brought into contact. But there was no key there now, and he recalled how Stratton had endeavoured to keep him away from that door. A trifle then, but looking singularly suggestive now.

A dozen little facts began to grow and spread into horrors, all pointing to the cause of Stratton's sudden change, and strengthening Guest's ideas that there must have been a quarrel on the morning appointed for the wedding, possibly connected with money matters, and then in a fit of rage and excitement--disappointment, perhaps, at not willingly receiving the help he had antic.i.p.ated--a blow had been struck, one that unintentionally had proved fatal.

All Guest's ideas set in this direction, and once started everything fitted in exactly, so that at last he felt perfectly convinced that his friend had killed Brettison and in some way disposed of the body.

For a moment he was disposed to cast the ideas out as utterly absurd and improbable, but the ideas would flow back again; and, try how he would to find some better solution of the puzzle, there seemed to be only that one way.

Stratton stood there by the fireplace, pale, haggard, and wrapped in thought, apparently utterly unconscious of his friend's presence, till Guest took a step or two forward and rested his hand upon the table.

Here he remained for a few minutes, trying to think out his course. For he felt now full of a guilty knowledge, and in that knowledge, if he did not make it known, a sharer--an accomplice--in a murder. For so the law and the world would judge it. And then there was Edie!

A shiver of dread and misery ran through him as her bright little face crossed his mind, and he saw that by keeping silence till the discovery--for that must come--he would be so implicated that he would share his friend's arrest; and, even if matters did not turn out serious with him as far as the law was concerned, his position with the admiral's family would be the same as Stratton's--everything would be at an end--his love affair like that of the miserable man before him; the man who now turned to him with a scared, horrified, hunted look in his eyes, startled by Guest's advance.

It was time to speak, Guest thought, but the words would not come at first, and he could only gaze wildly at the wretched being before him, and think of their old schooldays together, then of their first fresh manhood, and always together, sharing purses, pleasures, troubles, full confidence always till this trouble had come.

For the moment he hated and loathed the man before him; but the feeling was momentary. Stratton would not wilfully have thrust himself into such a position. He felt that there must be something more than he knew, and, softening down, he said huskily:

"Well, Stratton, what have you to say?"

There was no answer. Stratton gazed at him with a far-off, fixed stare, full of helpless misery, which drew his friend far nearer in heart, and he spoke more freely now.

"Come," he said; "speak out. In spite of everything, I am your old friend. I want to help you. Will you trust me?"

"Trust you? Yes," said Stratton slowly.

"Tell me, then, everything, beginning from the morning when you were to be married."

Stratton slowly shook his head.

"Come, man; this is no time for reticence. Tell me all," cried Guest excitedly; and he spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, and glanced to door and window, as if afraid of being overheard.

There was the same desponding movement.

"Am I not worthy of your confidence? I tell you I am ready to share it--ready to help you if you will only be honest with me, and tell me frankly everything."

There was no reply.

"Stratton, old fellow," cried Guest piteously, "you must speak. I do not believe that you could have been intentionally guilty."

Stratton glanced at him quickly, but the eager look died out.

"I tell you that you are injuring me as well as yourself. You have blighted your life; for G.o.d's sake don't blight mine, too."

"What--what do you mean?" cried Stratton, who started as if stung at his friend's reference to his future, and when the appeal came, took a step or two forward.

"That, knowing what I do, compelled from our old a.s.sociations to be silent, I cannot--dare not go near her again."

"Guest!"

"I have said it. How can I take her innocent hand?"

"Because you know nothing," cried Stratton excitedly; "because you shall know nothing. One is enough to bear a crime, if crime it was."

"Ah! You confess!" cried Guest; "then you did--kill him."

Stratton made no reply, but looked firmly and sorrowfully in his eyes.

"I knew it--I was sure--your manner betrayed you when we were in that room. I see all, now. You closed that door."

"I will not be dragged into any confession," said Stratton fiercely.

"It is my secret, and I will tell it to none. I have a right to keep my own counsel. You have a right to denounce me if you like. If you speak, you can force me to no greater punishment than I suffer now."

"Then it is all true?" groaned Guest. "You killed him, and hid him there?"

Stratton uttered a mocking laugh.

"That door!" said Guest huskily. "Twice over you have stopped me from going there. Your manner has been that of a guilty man, and I am forced to share the knowledge of your crime."

"No," said Stratton, speaking now with a look of calm contempt; "you share no knowledge--you shall share no knowledge. You say I killed him and hid him there; where are your proofs? You have brought in the police, and they have searched. What have you found? Again, I say, where are your proofs?"

Guest looked at him wildly, and his lips parted, but he uttered no sound.

"Let me rest, my good fellow, let me rest. You are warring against your own happiness in trying to pry into matters that are naught to you. I will not blight your future, Percy Guest, by letting you share any secrets of mine. There, good-night. I want to be alone."

Guest tried to recommence the argument, and to master the man who looked so pitifully weak, but somehow the other's will was too powerful, and he had to yield, leaving the chambers at last with a shudder of horror, and feeling that he could never take Stratton by the hand again.

For the man seemed changed. There was a mocking, almost triumphant, look in his eyes as he took the lamp from the table, and followed Guest out on to the landing to stand there, holding the light over the ma.s.sive bal.u.s.trade for his friend to descend.

As Guest reached the bottom, he looked up, and there, by the light which fell full upon Stratton's face, was the strange, mocking air intensified, and with a shiver he hurried across the inn, feeling that the mystery had deepened instead of being cleared.

His intention was to hurry back to his own chambers, feeling that it was impossible for him to go near Bourne Square, knowing what he did, but the yearning for one to share his knowledge proved too strong.

"And I promised that she should share every secret," he said to himself.

"Whom am I to trust if I don't trust her!"