The Bittermeads Mystery/Chapter 13

It was the next day that there arrived by the morning post a letter for Dunn.

Deede Dawson raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw it; and he did not hand it on until he had made himself master of its contents, though that did not prove to be very enlightening or interesting. The note, in fact, merely expressed gratification at the news that Dunn had secured steady work, a somewhat weak hope that he would keep it, and a still fainter hope that now perhaps he would be able to return the ten shillings borrowed, apparently from the writer, at some time in the past.

Mr. Deede Dawson, in spite of the jejune nature of the communication, read it very carefully and indeed even went so far as to examine the letter through a powerful magnifying-glass.

But he made no discovery by the aid of that instrument, and he neglected, for no man thinks of everything, to expose the letter to a gentle heat, which was what Dunn did when, presently, he received it, apparently unopened and with not the least sign to show that it had been tampered with in any way whatever.

Gradually, however, as Dunn held it to the fire, there appeared between the lines fresh writing, which he read very eagerly, and which ran:—

“Jane Dunsmore, born 1830, married, against family wishes, John Clive and had one son, John, killed early this year in a motor-car accident, leaving one son, John, now of Ramsdon Place and third in line of succession to the Wreste Abbey property.”

When he had read the message thus strangely and with such precaution conveyed to him, Dunn burnt the letter and went that day about his work in a very grave and thoughtful mood.

“I knew it couldn't be a mere coincidence,” he mused. “It wasn't possible. I must manage to warn him, somehow; but, ten to one, he won't believe a word, and I don't know that I blame him—I shouldn't in his place. And he might go straight to Deede Dawson and ruin everything. I don't know that it wouldn't be wiser and safer to say nothing for the present, till I'm more sure of my ground—and then it may be too late.”

“Just possibly,” he thought, “the job Deede Dawson clearly thinks he can make me useful in may have something to do with Clive. If so, I may be able to see my way more clearly.”

As it happened, Clive was away for a few days on some business he had to attend to, so that for the present Dunn thought he could afford to wait.

But during the week-end Clive returned, and on the Monday he came again to Bittermeads.

It was never very agreeable to Dunn to have to stand aloof while Clive was laughing and chatting and drinking his tea with Ella and her mother, and of those feelings of annoyance and vexation he made this time a somewhat ostentatious show.

That his manner of sulky anger and resentment did not go unnoticed by Deede Dawson he was very sure, but nothing was said at the time.

Next morning Deede Dawson called him while he was busy in the garage and insisted on his trying to solve another chess problem.

“I haven't managed the other yet,” Dunn protested. “It's not too easy to hit on these key-moves.”

“Never mind try this one,” Deede Dawson said; and Ella, going out for a morning stroll with her mother, saw them thus, poring together over the travelling chess-board.

“They seem busy, don't they?” she remarked. “Father is making quite a friend of that man.”

“I don't like him,” declared Mrs. Dawson, quite vigorously for her. “I'm sure a man with such a lot of hair on his face can't be really nice, and I thought he was inclined to be rude yesterday.”

“Yes,” agreed Ella. “Yes, he was. I think Mr. Clive was a little vexed, though he took no notice, I suppose he couldn't very well.”

“I don't like the man at all,” Mrs. Dawson repeated. “All that hair, too. Do you like him?”

“I don't know,” Ella answered, and after she and her mother had returned from their walk she took occasion to find Dunn in the garden and ask him some trifling question or another.

“You are interested in chess?” she remarked, when he had answered her.

“All problems are interesting till one finds the answer to them,” he replied.

“There's one I know of,” she retorted. “I wish you would solve for me.”

“Tell me what it is,” he said quickly. “Will you?”

She shook her head slightly, but she was watching him very intently from her clear, candid eyes, and now, as always, her nearness to him, the infinite appeal he found in her every look and movement, the very fragrance of her hair, bore him away beyond all purpose and intention.

“Tell me what it is,” he said again. “Won't you? Miss Cayley, if you and I were to trust each other—it's not difficult to see there's something troubling you.”

“Most people have some trouble or another,” she answered evasively.

He came a little nearer to her, and instead of the gruff, harsh tones he habitually used, his voice was singularly pleasant and low as he said:—

“People who are in trouble need help, Miss Cayley. Will you let me help you?”

“You can't,” she answered, shaking her head. “No one could.”

“How can you tell that?” he asked eagerly. “Perhaps I know more already than you think.”

“I daresay you do,” she said slowly. “I have thought that a long time. Will you tell me one thing?—Are you his friend or not?”

There was no need for Dunn to ask to whom the pronoun she used referred.

“I am so much not his friend,” he answered as quietly and deliberately as she had spoken. “That it's either his life or mine.”

At that she drew back in a startled way as though his words had gone beyond her expectations.

“How do I know I can trust you?” she said presently, half to herself, half to him.

“You can,” he said, and it was as though he flung the whole of his enigmatic and vivid personality into those two words.

“You can,” he said again. “Absolutely.”

“I must think,” she muttered, pressing her hands to her head. “So much depends—how can I trust you? Why should I—why?”

“Because I'll trust you first,” he answered with a touch of exultation in his manner. “Listen to me and I'll tell you everything. And that means I put my life in your hands. Well, that's nothing; I would do that any time; but other people's lives will be in your power, too—yes, and everything I'm here for, everything. Now listen.”

“Not now,” she interrupted sharply. “He may be watching, listening—he generally is.” Again there was no need between them to specify to whom the pronoun referred. “Will you meet me tonight near the sweet-pea border—about nine?”

She glided away as she spoke without waiting for him to answer, and as soon as he was free from the magic of her presence, reaction came and he was torn by a thousand doubts and fears and worse.

“Why, I'm mad, mad,” he groaned. “I've no right to tell what I said I would, no right at all.”

And again there returned to him his vivid, dreadful memory of how she had started on that midnight drive with her car so awfully laden.

And again there returned to him his old appalling doubt:—

“Did she not know?”

And though he would willingly have left his life in her hands, he knew he had no right to put that of others there, and yet it seemed to him he must keep the appointment and the promise he had made.

About nine that evening, then, he made his way to the sweet-pea border, though, as he went, he resolved that he would not tell her what he had said he would.

Because he trusted his own strength so little when he was with her, he confirmed this resolution by an oath he swore to himself: and even that he was not certain would be a sure protection against the witchery she wielded.

So it was with a mind doubtful and troubled more than it had ever been since the beginning of these things that he came to the border where the sweet-peas grew, and saw a dark shadow already close by them.

But when he came a little nearer he saw that it was not Ella who was there but Deede Dawson and his first thought was that she had betrayed him.

“That you, Dunn?” Deede Dawson hailed him in his usual pleasant, friendly manner.

“Yes,” Dunn answered warily, keeping himself ready for any eventuality.

Deede Dawson took a cigar from his pocket and lighted it and offered one to Dunn, who refused it abruptly.

Deede Dawson laughed at that in his peculiar, mirthless way.

“Am I being the third that's proverbially no company?” he asked. “Were you expecting to find some one else here? I thought I saw a white frock vanish just as I came up.”

Dunn made no answer, and Deede Dawson continued after a pause:—

“That's why I waited. You are being just a little bit rapid in this affair, aren't you?”

“I don't know why. You said something, didn't you?” muttered Dunn, beginning to think that, after all, Deede Dawson's presence here was due to accident—or rather to his unceasing and unfailing watchfulness, and not to any treachery of Ella's.

“Yes, I did, didn't I?” he agreed pleasantly. “But you are a working gardener taken on out of charity to give you a chance and keep you out of gaol, and you are looking a little high when you think of your master's ward and daughter, aren't you?”

“There was a time when I shouldn't have thought so,” answered Dunn.

“We're talking of the present, my good man,” Deede Dawson said impatiently. “If you want the girl you must win her. It can be done, but it won't be easy.”

“Tell me how,” said Dunn.

“Oh, that's going too fast and too far,” answered the other with his mirthless laugh. “Now, there's Mr. John Clive—what about him?”

“I'll answer for him,” replied Dunn slowly and thickly. “I've put better men than John Clive out of my way before today.”

“That's the way to talk,” cried Deede Dawson. “Dunn, dare you play a big game for big stakes?”

“Try me,” said Dunn.

“If I showed you,” Deede Dawson's voice sank to a whisper, “if I showed you a pretty girl for a wife—a fortune to win—what would you say?”

“Try me,” said Dunn again, and then, making his voice as low and hoarse as was Dunn's, he asked:—

“Is it Clive?”

“Later—perhaps,” answered Deede Dawson. “There's some one else—first. Are you ready?”

“Try me,” said Dunn for the third time, and as he spoke his quick ear caught the faint sound of a retreating footstep, and he told himself that Ella must have lingered near and had perhaps heard all they said.

“Try me,” he said once more, speaking more loudly and clearly this time.