The Bittermeads Mystery/Chapter 17

Dunn knew very well that he ought to give immediate information to the authorities of what had happened.

But he did not. He told himself that nothing could help poor John Clive, and that any precipitate action on his part might still fatally compromise his plans, which were now so near completion.

But his real reason was that he knew that if he came forward he would be very closely questioned, and sooner or later forced to tell the things he knew so terribly involving Ella.

And he knew that to surrender her to the police and proclaim her to the world as guilty of such things were tasks beyond his strength; though, to himself, with a touch of wildness in his thoughts, he said that no proved and certain guilt should go unpunished even though his own hand— It was a train of ideas he did not pursue.

“Charley Wright first and now John Clive,” he said to himself. “But the end is not yet.”

Again he would not let his thoughts go on but checked them abruptly.

In this dark and troubled mood he went out to busy himself with the garden, and all the time he worked he watched with a sort of vertigo of horror where Ella sat in the sunshine by her mother's side, her white hands moving nimbly to and fro upon her needlework.

It was not long, however, before the tragedy of the wood was discovered, for Clive had been seen to go in that direction, and when he did not return a search was made that was soon successful.

The news was brought to Bittermeads towards evening by a tradesman's boy, who came up from the village to bring something that had been ordered from there.

“Have you heard?” he said to Dunn excitedly. “Mr. Clive's been shot dead by poachers.”

“Oh—by poachers?” repeated Dunn.

“Yes, poachers,” the boy answered, and went on excitedly to tell his tale with many, and generally very inaccurate, details.

But that the crime had been discovered and instantly set down to poachers was at least certain, and Dunn realized at once that the adoption of this simple and apparently plausible theory would put an end to all really careful investigation of the circumstances and make the discovery of the truth highly improbable.

For the idea that the murder was the work of poachers would, when once adopted, fill the minds of the police and of every one else, and no suspicion would be directed elsewhere.

By the tremendous relief he felt, Dunn understood how heavy had been the burden of fear and apprehension that till now had oppressed him.

If he had not found that handkerchief—if he had not secured that letter—why, by now the police would be at Bittermeads.

“All the same,” he thought. “No one who is guilty shall escape through me.”

But what this phrase meant, and what he intended to do, he would not permit himself to think out clearly or try to understand.

The boy, having told his story, hurried off to spread the news elsewhere to more appreciative ears, for, he thought disgustedly, it might have been just nothing at all for all the interest the gardener at Bittermeads had shown.

As soon as he was gone, Dunn went across to the house, and going up to the window of the drawing-room where Ella and her mother were having tea, he tapped on the pane.

Ella looked up and saw him, and came at once to open the window, while from behind Mrs. Dawson frowned in severe disapproval of what she considered a great liberty.

“Mr. Clive has been shot,” Dunn said abruptly. “They say poachers did it. He was killed instantly.”

Ella did not seem at first to understand. She looked puzzled and bewildered, and did not seem to grasp the full import of his words.

“What—what do you say?” she asked. “Mr. Clive— Who's killed?”

Dunn thought to himself that her acting was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

It was extraordinary that she should be able to make that grey pallor come over her cheeks as though the meaning of what he said were only now entering her mind; wonderful that she should be able so well to give the idea of a great horror and a great doubt coming slowly into her startled eyes.

“Mr. Clive?” she said again.

“Yes, he's been killed,” Dunn said. “By poachers, apparently.”

“What is that? What is that man saying?” shrilled Mrs. Dawson from behind. “Mr. Clive—John—why, he was here yesterday.”

Dunn turned his back and walked away. He heard Ella call after him, but he would not look back because he feared what he might do if he obeyed her call.

With an odd buzzing in his ears, with the blood throbbing through his brain as though something must soon break there, he walked blindly on, and as he came to the gate of Bittermeads he saw a motor-car coming up the road.

It was Deede Dawson's car, and he was driving it, and by his side sat a sulkily-smiling stranger, his air that of one not sure of his welcome, but determined to enforce it, in whom, with a quick start, Dunn recognized his burglar, the man whose attempt to break into Bittermeads he had frustrated, and whose place he had taken.

He put up his hand instinctively for them to stop, and Deede Dawson at once obeyed the gesture.

Dunn noticed that the smile upon his lips was more gentle and winning than ever, the look in his eyes more dark and menacing.

“Well, Dunn, what is it?” he said as pleasantly as he always spoke. “Mr. Allen,” he added to his companion, “this is my man, Dunn, I told you about, my gardener and chauffeur, and a very industrious steady fellow—and quite trustworthy.”

He seemed to lay a certain emphasis on the last two words, and Allen put his head on one side and looked at Dunn with an odd, mixture of familiarity, suspicion, hesitation, and an uncertain assumption of superiority, but with no hint of recognition showing.

“Glad to hear it,” he said. “You always want to know whom you can trust.”

“Mr. Clive has been murdered,” Dunn said abruptly. “Poachers, it is said. Did you know?”

“We heard about it as we came through the village,” answered Deede Dawson. “Very sad, very dreadful. It will be a great shock to poor Ella, I fear. Take the car on to the garage, will you?” he added.

He drove on up the drive, and at the front door they alighted and entered the house together. Dunn followed, and getting into the car, drove it to the garage, where he busied himself cleaning it. As he worked he wondered very much what was the meaning of this sudden appearance on terms of friendship with Deede Dawson of this man Allen, whom he had last seen trying to break into the house at night.

Was Allen an accomplice of Deede Dawson, or a dupe, or, more probably, a new recruit?

At any rate, to Dunn it seemed that the crisis he had expected and prepared for was now fast approaching, and he told himself that if he had failed in Clive's case, those others he was working for he must not fail to save.

“Looks as if Dawson's plans were nearly ready,” he said to himself. “Well, so are mine.”

He finished his work and shutting the garage door, he was turning away when he saw Ella coming towards him.

She was extremely pale, and her eyes seemed larger than ever, and very bright against the deathly whiteness of her cheeks.

She was wearing a blouse that was cut a little low, and he notice with a kind of terror how soft and round was her throat, like a column of pale and perfect ivory.

He hoped she would not speak to him, for he thought perhaps he could not bear it if she did, but she halted near by, and said:—

“This is very dreadful about poor Mr. Clive.”

“Very,” he answered moodily.

“Why should poachers kill him?” she asked. “Why should they want to?”

“I don't know,” he answered, watching not her but her soft throat, where he could see a pulse fluttering. “Perhaps it wasn't poachers,” he added.

She started violently, and gave a quick look that seemed to make yet more certain the certainty he already entertained.

“Who else could it be?” she asked in a low voice.

He did not answer.

After what seemed a long time she said:—

“You asked me a question once—do you remember?”

He shook his head.

“Why don't you speak? Why can't you speak?” she cried angrily. “Why can't you say something instead of just shaking your head?”

“You see, I've asked you so many questions,” he said slowly. “Perhaps I shall ask you some more some day—which question do you mean?”

“I mean when you asked me if I had ever met any one who spoke in a very shrill, high whistling sort of voice? Do you remember?”

“Yes,” he said. “You wouldn't tell me.”

“Well, I will now,” she said. “I did meet a man once with a voice like that. Do you remember the night you, came here that I drove away in the car with a packing-case you carried downstairs?”

“Do I—remember?” he gasped, for that memory, and the thought of how she had driven away into the night with, that grisly thing behind her on the car had never since left his mind by night or by day.

“Yes,” she exclaimed impatiently. “Why do you keep staring so? Are you as stupid as you choose to look? Do you remember?”

“I remember,” he answered heavily. “I remember very well.”

“Well, then, the man I took that packing-case to had a voice just like that—high and shrill, whistling almost.”

“I thought as much,” said Dunn. “May I ask you another question?”

She nodded.

“May I smoke?”

She nodded again with a touch of impatience.

He took a cigarette from his pocket and put it in his mouth and lighted a match, but the match, when he had lighted it, he used to put light to a scrap of folded paper with writing on it, like a note.

This piece of paper he used to light his cigarette with and when he had done so he watched the paper burn to an ash, not dropping it to the ground till the little flame stung his fingers.

The ash that had fallen he ground into the path where they stood with the heel of his boot.

“What have you burned there?” she asked, as if she suspected it was something of importance he had destroyed.

In fact it was the note that had fallen from dead John Clive's hand wherein Ella had asked him to meet her at the oak where he had met his death.

That bit of paper would have been enough, Dunn thought, to place a harsh hempen noose about the soft white throat he watched where the little pulse still fluttered up and down. But now it was burnt and utterly destroyed, and no one would ever see it.

At the thought he laughed and she drew back, very startled.

“Oh, what is the matter?” she exclaimed.

“Nothing,” he answered. “Nothing in all the world except that I love you.”