The Bittermeads Mystery/Chapter 15

He melted away into the darkness as he spoke, and through the night he slipped, one shadow more amongst many, from tree to bush, from bush to tree. Across a patch of open grass he crawled on his hands and knees; and once lay flat on his face when against the skyline he saw a figure he was sure was Deede Dawson's creep by a yard or two on his right hand.

On his left another shadow showed, distinguishable in the night only because it moved.

In a moment both shadows were gone, secret and deadly in the dark, and Dunn was very sure that Clive's life and his own both hung upon a slender chance, for if either of them was discovered the leaping bullet would do the rest.

It would be safe and easy—suspected burglars in a garden at midnight—nothing could be said. He lay very still with his face to the dewy sod, and all the night seemed full to him of searching footsteps and of a swift and murderous going to and fro.

He heard distinctly from the road a sudden, muffled sound as Clive in the darkness blunderingly missed his footing and fell upon one knee.

“That's finished him,” Dunn thought grimly, his ears straining for the sharp pistol report that would tell Clive's tale was done, and then he was aware of a cat, a favourite of Ella's and often petted by himself, that was crouching near by under a tree, most likely much puzzled and alarmed by this sudden irruption of hurrying men into its domain. Instantly Dunn saw his chance, and seizing the animal, lifted it and threw it in the direction where he guessed Deede Dawson to be.

His guess was good and fortune served him well, for the tabby flying caterwauling through the air alighted almost exactly in front of Deede Dawson on top of a small bush. For a moment it hung there, quite unhurt, but very frightened, and emitted a yell, then fled.

In the quietness the tumult of its scrambling flight sounded astonishingly loud, so that it sounded as through a miniature avalanche had been let loose in the garden.

“Only cats,” Deede Dawson exclaimed disgustedly, and from behind, nearer the house, Dunn called:—

“Who's there? What is it? What's the matter? Is it Mr. Dawson? Is anything wrong?”

“I think there is,” said Deede Dawson softly. “I think, perhaps, there is. What are you doing out here at this time of night, Charley Wright?”

“I heard a noise and came down to see what it was,” answered Dunn. “There was a light in the breakfast-room, but I didn't see any one, and the front door was open so I came out here. Is anything wrong?”

“That's what I want to know,” said Deede Dawson. “Come back to the house with me. If any one is about, he can just take himself off.”

He spoke the last sentence loudly, and Dunn took it as a veiled instruction to his companion to depart.

He realized that if he had saved Clive he had done so at the cost of missing the best opportunity that had yet come his way of obtaining very important, and, perhaps, decisive information.

To have discovered the identity of this stranger who had come visiting Deede Dawson might have meant much, and he told himself angrily that Clive's safety had certainly not been worth purchasing at the cost of such a lost chance, though he supposed that was a point on which Clive himself might possibly entertain a different opinion.

But now there was nothing for it but to go quietly back to the house, for clearly Deede Dawson's suspicions were aroused and he had his revolver ready in his hand.

“I suppose it was only cats all the time,” he observed, with apparent unconcern. “But at first I made sure there were no burglars in the house.”

“And I suppose,” suggested Deede Dawson. “You think one burglar's enough in a household.”

“I don't mean to have any one else mucking around,” growled Dunn in answer.

“Very admirable sentiments,” said Deede Dawson and asked several more questions that showed he still entertained some suspicion of Dunn, and was not altogether satisfied that his appearance in the garden was quite innocent, or that the noise heard there was due solely to cats.

Dunn answered as best he could, and Deede Dawson listened and smiled, and smiled again, and watched him from eyes that did not smile at all.

“Oh, well,” Deede Dawson said at last, with a yawn. “Anyhow, it's all right now. You had better get along back to bed, and I'll lock up.” He accompanied Dunn into the hall and watched him ascend the stairs, and as Dunn went slowly up them he felt by no means sure that soon a bullet would not come questing after him, searching for heart or brain.

For he was sure that Deede Dawson still suspected him, and he knew Deede Dawson to be very sudden and swift in action. But nothing happened, he reached the broad, first landing in safety, and he was about to go on up to his attic when he beard a door at the end of the passage open and saw Ella appear in her dressing-gown.

“What is the matter?” she asked, in a low voice.

“It's all right,” he answered. “There was a noise in the garden, and I came down to see what it was, but it's only cats.”

“Oh, is that all?” she said distrustfully.

“Yes,” he answered, in a lower voice still, he said:—

“Will you tell me something? Do you know any one who talks in a very peculiar shrill high voice?”

She did not answer, and, after a moment's hesitation, went back into her room and closed the door behind her.

He went on up to his attic with the feeling that she could have answered if she had wished to, and lay down in a troubled and dispirited mood.

For he was sure now that Ella mistrusted him and would give him no assistance, and that weighed upon him greatly, as did also his conviction that what it behoved him above all else to know—the identity of the man who, in this affair, stood behind Deede Dawson and made use of his fierce and fatal energies—he had had it in his power to discover and had failed to make use of the opportunity.

“I would rather know that,” he said to himself, “than save a dozen Clives ten times over.” Though again it occurred to him that on this point Clive might hold another opinion. “If he hadn't made such a blundering row I might have got to know who Deede Dawson's visitor was. I must try to get a word with Clive tomorrow by hook or crook, though I daresay Deede Dawson will be very much on the lookout.”

However, next morning Deede Dawson not only made no reference to the events of the night, but had out the car and went off immediately after breakfast without saying when he would be back.

As soon after his departure as possible, Dunn also set out and took his way through the woods towards Ramsdon Place on the look-out for an opportunity to speak to Clive unobserved.

He thought it most likely that Clive would be drawn towards the vicinity of Bittermeads by the double fascination of curiosity and fear, and he supposed that if he waited and watched in the woods he would be sure presently to see him.

But though he remained for long hidden at a spot whence he could command the road to Bittermeads from Ramsdon Place, he saw nothing at all of Clive, and the sunny lazy morning was well advanced when he was startled by the sound of a gun shot some distance away.

“A keeper shooting rabbits, I suppose,” he thought, looking round just in time to see Ella running through the wood from the direction whence the sound of the shot had seemed to come, and then vanish again with a quick look behind her into the heart of a close-growing spinney.