Works of Ellen Wood, page 938
Ann Hopley was upstairs, making the beds, and attending to matters there generally. Until her room was ready, and the fire had burnt up well to dress the baby by, Mrs. Grey would stay where she was: consequently she was at full liberty to linger over her breakfast. There was something in the extreme quietness of the little child, and in its passive face, that to a more experienced eye might have suggested doubts of its well-being: a perfectly healthy infant is apt to be as troublesome as it can be. Mrs. Grey suspected nothing. It had improved much since its baptism, and she supposed it to be getting strong and healthy. A soft sweet plaintive note escaped the child’s lips.
“Yes, my baby. Mamma has not forgotten you. The room will soon be warm, and baby shall be dressed. And then mamma will wrap it up well and wrap herself up, and sit out of doors in the sunshine. And papa—”
The words broke off in a low wail of horror; her heart seemed to die away in the faintness of sick despair. Something like a dark cloud had passed the window, shutting out for a moment the glad sunshine on the grass. It was Mr. Detective Strange: and, following closely on his heels, were the two same policemen, both of them this time in official clothes. They had come through the maze without warning, no doubt by the help of the passe-partout, and were making swiftly for the entrance-door — that lay open to the morning air. Her supposition was that they had fathomed Adam’s system of concealment.
“God help us! God save and protect us!” breathed the poor wife, clasping her hands, and every drop of blood going out of her ashy face.
Mr. Strange, who had seen her through the window, was in the room without a moments delay. He was courteous as before; he meant to be as considerate as the nature of his mission allowed him to be: and even before he had spoken a word, the keen, practised eye took in the visible signs. The small parlour affording no possibility for the concealment of Salter; the baby on the sofa; the breakfast, laid for one only, of which Mrs. Grey was partaking.
He was very sorry to be obliged to intrude upon her again: but he had orders once more to search the Maze, and could but obey them. And he begged her to believe that she herself, individually, should be subjected to no annoyance or restraint.
She made no answer: she could collect neither thoughts nor words to do so in her terrible fear. Mr. Strange retreated with a bow and closed the door again, making a mental comment upon her evident distress, her ghastly looks.
“There’s no mistake, I think, that he is ready to our hands this time: her face alone would betray it The curious thing is — where was he before?”
Ann Hopley had finished the rooms, and was kneeling before the fire in her mistress’s chamber, coaxing an obstinate piece of coal to burn, and blowing at it with her lips with all her might, when a slight noise caused her to turn. There stood Mr. Strange, a policeman at his elbow. She had not heard the entrance. Up she got, and stood staring; unable to believe her eyes, and startled almost into screaming. But she knew how much lay upon her — almost life or death.
“Goodness bless me!” cried she, speaking freely, as she strove to brave it out, and shaking inwardly, “Whatever brings you folks here again?”
“We have to go through the house once more.”
“How did you get in?”
“Quite legally,” replied Mr. Strange. “I have to do my duty.”
So entirely was she unprepared for this, and perhaps fearing that in her state of dismayed perplexity she might let fall some dangerous word of admission, feeling also that she could do no good to her master by staying, but might do harm, Ann Hopley withdrew, after giving the fire a gentle lift with the poker, and went down to the kitchen with a cool air, as if resolved not to let the affair interrupt her routine of work. Taking up a small basket of what she would have termed “fine things,” recently washed, consisting of caps and bits of lace, and such like articles pertaining to the baby, she carried it out of doors beyond the end of the lawn, and began putting the things on gooseberry bushes to dry. Old Hopley was pottering about there, doing something to the celery bed. The policeman left on guard below, and standing so that his sight could command all things, surveyed her movements with a critical eye. She did not go out of his sight, but came back with the basket at once. While spreading the things, she had noted him watching her.
“I daresay I’m a kind of genteel prisoner,” ran her thoughts. “If I attempted to go where those ugly eyes of his couldn’t follow me, he might be for ordering me back, for fear I should be giving warning to the master that they are here. Well, we can do nothing; it is in Heaven’s hands: better they came in today than yesterday!”
Mr. Detective Strange had rarely felt surer of anything than he was that he should find Philip Salter in bed, and capture him without the slightest difficulty in his sick state. It was not so to be. Very much to his amazement, there appeared to be no sign whatever of a sick man in the place. The rooms were all put in order for the day, the beds made; nothing was different from what it had been at the time of his previous entrance. Seek as he would, his practised eye could find no trace — nay, no possibility — of any hidden chamber. In fact, there was none.
“Where the deuce can the fellow be?” mused Mr Strange, gazing about him with a thoughtful air.
The underground places were visited with as little success, though the search he made was minute and careful. He could not understand it. That Salter had not been allowed time to escape out of doors, so rapid was their first approach, he knew; but, nevertheless, the trees and grounds were well examined. Hopley lifted his poor bent back from his work in the celery-bed — from which, as the watching policeman could have testified, he had not stirred at all — to touch his straw hat when the detective passed. Mr. Strange answered by a nod, but did not accost him. To question the deaf old man would be only waste of time.
There was some mystery about all this; a mystery he — even he — could not at present fathom. Just one possibility crossed his mind and was exceedingly unwelcome — that Salter, alarmed by the stir that was being made, had in truth got away. Got away, in spite of the precautions that he, Strange, in conjunction with the police of Basham, had been for the past day or two taking, secretly and unobserved.
He did not believe it. He did not wish to believe it. And, in truth, it seemed to him not to be possible, for more reasons than one. A man in the condition of health hinted at by Dr. Cavendish would be in no state for travelling. But still — with the Maze turned, as he honestly believed, inside out, and showing no signs or trace of Salter, where was he?
This took up some time. Ann Hopley had got her preparations for dinner forward, had answered the butcher’s bell and taken in the meat: and by and by went across the garden again to cut two cauliflowers. She was coming back with them in her apron, when Mr. Strange met her, and spoke.
“I have a question or two to put to you, Mrs. Hopley, which I must desire of you to answer — and to answer correctly. Otherwise I shall be obliged to summon you before the magistrates and compel your answers on your oath. If you are wise you will avoid giving me and yourself that trouble.”
“As far as answering you goes, sir, I’d as soon answer as be silent,” she returned, in a temperate but nevertheless injured tone. “But I must say that it puts my temper up to see an innocent and inoffensive young lady insulted as my poor mistress is. What has she done to be signalled out for such treatment? If she were not entirely unprotected here, a lone woman, you’d not dare to do it. You told her the other day you were in search of one Salter: and you know that you looked in every hole and corner our house has got, and must have satisfied yourself that no Salter was here. And yet, here you come in, searching again!”
“It was not Salter, I suppose, who was ill yesterday; for whom Dr. Cavendish was telegraphed?” rejoined Mr. Strange, significantly, having allowed her speech to run on to its end. “Perhaps you will tell me that?”
“Salter! That I’ll take my oath it was not, sir.”
“Who was it, then?”
“Well, sir, it was no one that you could have any concern with.”
“I am the best judge of that. Who was it? Remember, I ask you in the name of the law, and you must answer me.”
“That gentleman came down on a short visit to my mistress, and was taken ill while he stayed. It frightened us out of our senses; it was a fainting-fit, or something of that sort, but he looked for all the world like a man dead; and I ran off and telegraphed for a doctor.”
The detective’s eyes were searching Ann Hopley through and through. She did not flinch: and looked innocent as the day.
“What has become of him?”
“He went away again last night, sir.”
“Went away, did he!” — in a mocking tone of incredulity.
“He did, sir. After the doctor left he got up and dressed and came down, saying he was better. He didn’t seem to think much of his illness; he had been as bad, he said, before. I confess I was surprised, myself, to hear he was going away, for I thought him not well enough to travel. But I believe he was obliged to go.”
“What was his name?”
“I did not hear it, sir. He was here but a few hours in all.”
“Look here, Mrs. Hopley: if you will tell me where that gentleman came from, and what his name is, I will give you five sovereigns.”
Her eyes opened, apparently with the magnitude of the offer.
“I wish I could, sir. I’m sure I should be glad to earn all that, if it were in my power; for I don’t believe Hopley will be able to work over-much longer, and we are laying up what little we can. I think he came from London, but I am not sure: and I think he’s going off to some foreign country, for he and my mistress were talking of the sea. She wished him a good voyage and a safe landing. I heard her.”
The detective paused. Was this true or false? “What was his name? Come, Mrs. Hopley?”
“Sir, I have said that I did not hear his name. He came without our expecting him, or I might have heard beforehand. My mistress called him Edward: but of course that must be his Christian name. I understood him to be some relation of hers.”
“I wonder what Hopley could tell me of this?” cried the detective, looking at her.
“Hopley could tell you nothing — but of course you are welcome to ask him if you please. Hopley never saw him at all, as far as I know; and I did not say anything to the old man about it. If you question Hopley, sir, I must help you — you’d be a month making him hear, yourself.”
“How is it that you keep your husband in ignorance of things? — as you seem to do.”
“Of what things, sir?” rejoined the woman. “I’m sure I don’t keep things from him: I have no things to keep. It’s true I didn’t tell him of this. I was uncommonly tired last night, for it had been a trying day, and full of work besides; and it takes no little exertion, I can testify, to make Hopley understand. One can’t gossip with him, as one can with people who have got their hearing.”
This was no doubt true. The detective was frightfully at fault, and did not conceal from himself that he was. The woman seemed so honest, so open, so truthful; and yet he could have staked his professional fame that there lay mystery somewhere, and that the sick man had not gone away. Instinct, prevision — call it what you will — told him that the man was lying close to his hand — if he could only put that hand out in the right direction and lay it on him. Bending his head, he took a few steps about the grass: and Ann Hopley, hoping she was done with, went into the kitchen with her cauliflowers.
Letting them fall on to the dresser out of her apron, she gave a sharp look around, in-doors and out. The detective was then conversing with his two policemen, whom he had called up. Now was her time. Slipping off her shoes — though it was not likely her footsteps could be heard out on the lawn — she went across the passage, and opened the door of the little room: from which Mrs. Grey, in her fear and distress, had not dared to stir.
“Mistress,” she whispered, “I must give you the clue of what I have been saying, lest they come and ask you questions too. It would never do for us to have two tales, you one and me another. Do you mind me, ma’am?”
“Go on, Ann. Yes.”
“The sick gentleman came unexpectedly yesterday, and was taken sick here. You and me got frightened, and sent telegraphing off for a doctor. He got up after doctor left — said he was better — didn’t seem to think much of his illness, said he had been as bad before. Went away again at night; had to go; was going off to sea, I thought, as I heard you wish him a good voyage and safe landing. I didn’t know his name, I said; only heard you call him Edward: thought it was some near relation of yours. — Can you remember all this, ma’am?”
“Oh yes. You had better go back, Ann. If they see you talking to me — oh, go back! Ann, I — I feel as though I should die.”
“Nay, but you must keep up,” returned the woman in a kind tone. “I’ll bring you in a beat-up egg with a drop of wine in it. And, ma’am, you might say he was your brother if they come to close questioning: or brother-in-law. Don’t fear. I’d lay all I’m worth they won’t light upon the master. Twice they went within a yard or two of him, but—”
There was some noise. Ann Hopley broke off, closed the door softly, stole back again, and slipped her feet into her shoes. In less than a minute, when one of the men sauntered up, throwing his eyes through all the windows, she was in the scullery pumping water over her cauliflowers with as much noise as she could make.
Ann Hopley had judged correctly. Mr. Strange went to the little room, knocking for permission to enter, and there held an audience of its mistress. The baby lay on her lap now, fast asleep. His questions were tended to get a confirmation — or contradiction — of the servant’s ready tale. Mrs. Grey, though in evident tremor, and looking only fit for a ghost, had caught the thread of her lesson well, and answered correctly. Some particulars she had to improvise; for his questions were more minute than they had been to Ann Hopley.
His name? — Grey. — What relation? — Brother-in-law. What did he come down for? — To say good-bye before embarking for Australia. Where would he take ship? — She did not know; forgot: oh, now she remembered, it was Gravesend. Was she in the habit of seeing him? — Not often. He was never long together in one place, always travelling about. But was he in a fit state to travel? She did not know. She had thought he looked very ill and begged him to remain at least until to-day, but he said he could not as he might lose his ship. Did he come down to Foxwood by train? — Oh yes, by train: there was no other way. And go up by train? — To be sure. Which train? — One of the evening trains: thought it was past eight when he left the Maze.
“It’s the time for my mistress to take her egg,” interposed Ann Hopley at this juncture, entering the room with the said egg in a tumbler. “I suppose she’s at liberty to do it.”
To this last little fling Mr. Strange answered nothing. Ann Hopley put the tumbler on the table and withdrew. Poor Mrs. Grey looked too weak and ill to lift it to her lips, and let it stay where it was.
“Can it possibly be true that you are still in search of Philip Salter? — here?” she asked, raising her troubled eyes to the detective’s.
“It is quite true,” he replied.
“And that you really believe him to be concealed here?”
“Madam, I could stake my life upon it.”
She shook her head in feeble impotence, feeling how weak she was to combat this fixed belief. It was the old story over again. Nevertheless she made one more effort Mr. Strange was watching her.
“Sir, I do not know what to say more than I said before. But I declare to you once again, as solemnly as I can ever speak anything in this life, as solemnly as I shall one day have to answer before my Maker, that I know nothing of Philip Salter. He never was here at all to my knowledge, later or earlier. Why will you not leave me in peace?”
Mr. Detective Strange began to think that he should have to leave her in peace. Twice had he carried this fortress by storm to search at will its every nook and corner: and searched in vain. Armed with great power though he was, the law would not justify these repeated forcible entries, and he might be called to account for exceeding his duty. But the man was there — as surely as that the sun was in the heavens: and yet he could not unearth him. He began to think there must be caves underground impenetrable to the eye of man, with some invisible subtle entrance to them through the earth itself — and perhaps a subterranean passage communicating with Mr. Smith’s abode opposite.
And so, the second search ended as the first had done — in signal failure. Once more there was nothing left for the detective but to withdraw his men and himself, and to acknowledge that he was for the time defeated,
CHAPTER XVI.
Up the Spouts and down the Drains.
TURNING his face towards the railway station after quitting the Maze, with the view of making some enquiries, as to what passengers had alighted there the previous day and had gone back again — not that he believed one syllable of the tale told him — Mr. Strange encountered the gig of Dr. Cavendish bowling down. The physician recognised him and pulled up.
“What’s this I hear, sir, about my patient’s having gone off again?” cried the doctor in a sharp tone.
“I have heard the same,” replied Mr. Strange. “But I don’t believe it.”
“Oh then — you are not privy to it? You did not send him?”
“Not I, Dr. Cavendish. I went to the Maze betimes this morning to — to pay him a visit; and I was met with a tale that the bird had flown.”
“I can tell you, sir, that he was in a most unfit state to travel,” said the doctor with angry emphasis. “I don’t know what the consequences will be.”
