Witness to the Deed Part 71

"But he was lying back as I had left him, on a lounge, and I returned to the fellow I had brought up. I gave the man brandy, took a gla.s.s myself, and, before utilising the help I had brought, purposely sprinkled the wounded man with spirit--a hint being sufficient to direct the helper's thoughts into the channel that this person he was to help to the cab was a victim to _delirium tremens_, for the face was evidence enough.

"My new companion was to have a sovereign for his pains, so he found no cause to object; and when I offered to help laughingly put me aside.

"'Oh, I can carry him,' he said, 'like a baby.'

"A bold, indifferent manner was all, I felt, that was necessary; and fortune favoured me, for we did not pa.s.s a soul, and the placing of an apparently tipsy man in a four-wheel cab was not novelty enough to excite the interest of pa.s.sers-by. I was quite right, I tell you; a bold, careless front carried all before it, and in a very few minutes I had left my chambers locked up, the helper was on the box seat, and we were rolled over Blackfriars Bridge to my old servant's house.

"Here he was carried in, and old Mary shook her head at the scent of the spirits, but a.s.sisted willingly till my charge was laid upon the bed, the cabman and his companion dismissed, and then the doctor was fetched."

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Stratton, as he wiped the great drops of sweat from his brow.

"You are faint," said Brettison anxiously.

"Sick almost unto death," said Stratton hoa.r.s.ely.

The old man rose and crossed to an old bra.s.s-bound cellarette, which he opened.

"No, no," cried Stratton excitedly; "go on, man, go on. You are torturing me. Let me know the worst--or the best," he cried with a bitter laugh. "Ought I to wish his life to be saved, and, know that I am not a murderer?"

"A man is no murderer who slays another in defence of his own life,"

said Brettison calmly, getting out an old spirit decanter and gla.s.ses.

"Leave that," cried Stratton, pushing away the gla.s.s his friend placed before him. "Go on--go on!"

"No," said Brettison sternly; "you need the stimulus now."

"Man, have you no feeling for me at such an anguish point as this?"

"Man, have you no feeling for one who is old and infirm, and who has shortened his poor share of life in his efforts to save you from the misery of your lot?"

"Forgive me," groaned Stratton. "I am not what I was, Brettison."

"No man could go through such a crucial pa.s.sage in his life and come out the same," was the quiet reply. "There, drink that. I do not indulge in these things, as you know; but I am faint, and it is hard work to collect one's thoughts."

He poured out two little gla.s.ses of the contents of the old decanter, and drank one--Stratton, whose temples were throbbing, and whose hand trembled in a palsied way, following his example.

"Now," he said, "go on. I am in misery."

"You must know all. I must tell it in my own way, for my mind is confused all through with doubts as to whether I was right in keeping you in ignorance of all this. I did not see it before; I do see it now."

He looked upon Stratton's worn and aged face with a look full of pity and compunction.

"I acted for the best, my boy," he said--"I acted for the best; but I feel that I have been, in my zeal, half-mad. Still at such a time a man cannot be cool-blooded, and act as he would after longer thought."

Then, as he saw Stratton's hands raised:

"The doctor came, saw the patient, and made his examination carefully, ending by applying proper bandages to the wound, while Barron lay perfectly insensible, only uttering a low moan now and then, as if he felt pain when touched; otherwise he lay quite calmly, as if asleep.

"And as the doctor busied himself he asked no questions; but, as if he were influenced by my thoughts as I stood by him, watching him and waiting to give him a garbled--there, a lying--version of the incident, he at last took the very view as I wished to convey it to him by words.

"'A bad case, sir,' he said at last. 'I can do no more now. The bullet is evidently deeply imbedded. I will not take the risk of probing for it. Shall I get one of our eminent specialists in consultation?'

"I shook my head.

"'Fatal?' I said at last.

"He shrugged his shoulders.

"'Must speak plainly, sir,' he said. 'It is of no use to talk of hope to a man when one feels that there can be none. Poor fellow, his face tells the tale plainly enough. Drink. Stimulus after stimulus till the brandy, or whatever it is, ceases to have its effect. I knew one poor fellow who used to heat brandy over a spirit lamp to make its effect more rapid. Yes, ceases to have its effect, and more is used. Then the digestive powers break down, the over-goaded brain leaps from its bounds, and we have the delirium that ends in men feeling that life is not worth living, and makes them suicidal like this.'"

"You remember the very words?" said Stratton, looking at his friend wonderingly.

"Word for word," said Brettison slowly, "and always shall. I remember, too, the thrill of horror that ran through my nerves as he stood for a few moments with his back to me, between me and the bed, bending first over his patient, and then straightening himself up and raising one arm--his right--with the fist clenched, all but the index finger, which he pa.s.sed over his shoulder to touch, with the point of the finger, the spot behind his own ear where the bullet had entered.

"For a few moments I did not understand his gesture; then I grasped the fact, and followed his thoughts. He was, in imagination, holding a pistol to his head as he thought his patient must have held it when the trigger was drawn. He had completely taken my view that I wished to impart, and he was thinking of the inquest and the evidence he would have to give."

Stratton looked at him for a few moments with dilated eyes.

At last he spoke, for Brettison had become wrapped in thought, and sat gazing before him, as if seeing the whole horror once again.

"And did he," said Stratton, in broken words, "attend him--to the end; did he say--at the inquest--that it was suicide?"

"No," said Brettison, looking up with a start from his musings, and watching the effect of his words on his companion; "he tended him, but James Dale, or Barron, did not die. He is living now."

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.

BRETTISON IS MYSTERIOUS.

"James Barron living now?" cried Stratton excitedly. "Thank Heaven!"

But as the words left his lips his whole manner changed. His face had lighted up at Brettison's announcement, for the knowledge that he was not answerable for the convict's death--that he had not slain the husband of the woman he loved--was a tremendous weight, which had crushed him down, suddenly removed; but, like a sudden, scathing flash, came the horror of Myra's position once more.

There was no selfishness in the feeling; his thoughts were solely of and for her. That man still lived, and she was his wife--tied to an escaped convict, and at his mercy, unless Brettison had done his duty and handed him over to the authorities. But with his sympathetic feeling for her, there came over him a sense of overwhelming despair at his own helpless position.

He pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes, threw up his head, and seemed more like the old Malcolm Stratton, as he held out his hand to his friend, took that which was eagerly extended to him, and the two men sat, hand grasped in hand, silently for the s.p.a.ce of some minutes.

Brettison was the first to speak.

"Then you think, in spite of all, I did wisely?"

"I think you saved that man's life," said Stratton with a faint, sad smile upon his lip. "But for you I must have gone to the grave with that knowledge always on my brain. You have spared me that. I can sleep without waking to think of that man's blood being on my hands."

"And there is hope for you yet," whispered Brettison earnestly.

"Where?" said Stratton mournfully. "In the other world?"