The Bittermeads Mystery/Chapter 29

It was evident that more had occurred to make Mrs. Dawson afraid that she would, or perhaps could, say.

“Wait here,” Rupert said to her. “Don't stir.” The command seemed superfluous, for she had not at that moment the appearance of still possessing the power to move. Without speaking again, Rupert left the room and went quickly to the foot of the narrow stairs that led to the attics above.

He listened, crouching there, and heard nothing, and a cold fear came to him that perhaps Deede Dawson had done up above what he wished to do and then effected his escape while he himself had been lingering in Ella's room.

Adopting his plan of a rapid rush to disconcert the aim of any one who might be about to fire at him, he made a swift dash up the stairs and on the topmost one crouched down again and waited.

But still nothing happened, all was very quiet, and the door of one attic, the one which had been assigned to him as a bed-chamber, was wide open so that he could see into it and see that it was unoccupied.

But the doors of both the others were closed, and as he looked he made out in the gloom, for this landing by the attic was very badly-lighted by a small and awkwardly-placed skylight, a scattered dozen or so of hairpins, and a tortoiseshell comb such as he had seen sometimes in Ella's hair, lying on the floor near the door of the larger of the two attics, the one in which he remembered well he had found Deede Dawson on a certain night busy measuring and examining an empty packing-case.

With one quick rush he crossed the landing and flung himself at the door.

It opened at once, for it was not locked, and within he saw Deede Dawson, screw-driver in his hand, standing behind a large packing-case, the lid of which he had apparently that minute finished fastening down.

He looked up as Rupert entered thus precipitately, and he showed no sign of surprise or alarm.

“You're back early,” he said. “Something gone wrong?”

“What are you doing? What's in there?” Rupert asked, looking at the packing-case, his mouth and lips so suddenly dry he found it difficult to speak at all.

Deede Dawson began to laugh, a low and dreadful laughter that had in it no trace of merriment at all, but only of mockery and malice.

It was such laughter as a devil from the nethermost pit might give vent to when he saw at last a good man yield to long temptation.

“What's in there?” Rupert said again, pointing to the packing-case, and it was as though his soul swooned within him for fear of what the answer might be.

“What do the children say?” Deede Dawson returned with his terrible smile. “I'll give you three guesses, isn't it? See if you can guess in three tries.”

“What's in there?” Rupert asked the third time, and Deede Dawson laid down the screw-driver with which he had just driven home the last screw.

“Oh, see for yourself, if you want to,” he said. “But you ought to know. You know what was in the other case I sent away from here, the one I got Ella to take in the car for me? I want you to take this one away now, the sooner it's away the better.”

“That's it, is it?” Rupert muttered.

He no longer doubted, and for a moment all things swam together before him and he felt dizzy and a little sick, and so weak he staggered and nearly fell, but recovered himself in time.

The sensation passed and he saw Deede Dawson as it were a long way off, and between them the packing-case, huge, monstrous, and evil, like a thing of dread from some other world. Violent shudderings swept though him one after the other, and he was aware that Deede Dawson was speaking again.

“What did you say?” he asked vacantly, when the other paused.

“You look ill,” Deede Dawson answered. “Anything wrong? Why have you come back so soon? Have you failed?”

Rupert passed his hand before his eyes to clear away the mist that hung there and that hampered his sight.

He perceived that Deede Dawson held his right hand in the pocket of his coat, grasping something that bulged out curiously.

He divined that it was a pistol, and that Deede Dawson was ready to shoot at any moment, but that he wished very greatly to know first of all what had happened and why Rupert had returned so soon and whether there was immediate necessity for flight or not.

That he was uneasy was certain, for his cold eyes showed a hesitation and a doubt such as Rupert had never seen in them before.

“I'll tell you what's happened,” Rupert heard himself saying hoarsely. “If you'll tell me what's in there.”

“A bargain, eh?” Deede Dawson said. “It's easy enough. You can look for yourself if you unscrew the lid, but then, after all, why should we take all that trouble?”

As he spoke his pistol showed in his hand, and at once the heavy glass inkpot Rupert had held all this time flew straight and true, and with tremendous force, at Deede Dawson's head.

He avoided it only by the extreme rapidity with which he dropped behind the packing-case, and it flew over his head and crashed against the centre panel of a big wardrobe that stood in one corner of the room, splitting the panel it struck from top to bottom.

Following it, Rupert hurled himself forward with one great spring, but agile as a cat that leaps away from the mastiff's teeth, Deede Dawson slipped from his grasp to the other side of the room. In doing so he knocked his arm against the corner of the packing-case, so that his revolver fell to the ground.

With a shout Rupert stooped and seized it, and straightened himself to see that Deede Dawson had already another revolver in his hand—a second one that he had drawn from an inner pocket.

They remained very still, watching each other intently, neither eager to fire, since both wished first to make the other speak. For Rupert desired very greatly that Deede Dawson should tell him where Ella was, and Deede Dawson needed that Rupert should explain what had gone wrong, and how imminent and great was the danger that therefore most likely threatened him.

Each knew, too, that the slightest movement he made would set the other shooting, and each realized that in that close and narrow space any exchange of shots must almost of necessity mean the death of both, since both were cool and deadly marksmen, well accustomed to the use of the revolver.

Deede Dawson was the first to speak.

“Well, what next?” he said. “If that inkpot of yours had hit me it would pretty well have knocked my brains out, and if I hadn't hit my elbow against the corner of the packing-case I would have had you shot through with holes like a sieve by now. So far the score's even. Let's chat a bit, and see if we can't come to some arrangement. Look, I'll show I trust you.”

As he spoke he laid down, much to Rupert's surprise, and to his equal suspicion, his revolver on the top of a moth-eaten roll of old carpet that leaned against the wall near where he was standing.

“You see, I trust you,” he said once more.

“Take your pistol up again,” answered Rupert grimly. “I do not trust you.”

“Ah, that's a pity.” Deede Dawson smiled, making no effort to do as the other said. “You see, we are both good shots, and if we start blazing away at each other up here we shall both be leaking pretty badly before long. That's a prospect that has no attraction for me; I don't know if it has for you. But there are things I can tell you that might be interesting, and things you can tell me I want to know. Why not exchange a little information, and then separate calmly, rather than indulge in pistol practice that can only mean the death of us both? For if your first bullet goes through my brain I swear my first will be in your heart.”

“Likely enough,” agreed Rupert, “but worth while perhaps.”

“Oh, that's fanaticism,” Deede Dawson answered. “Flattering perhaps to me, but not quite reasonable, eh?”

“There's only one thing I want to know from you,” Rupert said slowly.

“Then why not ask it, why not agree to the little arrangement I suggest, eh? Eh, Rupert Dunsmore?”

“You know me, then?”

“Oh, long enough.”

“Where is Ella?”

Deede Dawson laughed again.

“That's a thing I know and you don't,” he said. “Well, she's safe away in London by this time.”

“That's a lie, for her mother's here still,” answered Rupert, even though his heart leapt merely to hear the words.

“Unbelieving Thomas,” smiled the other. “Well, then, she is where she is, and that you can find out for yourself. But I'll make another suggestion. We are both good shots, and if we start to fire we shall kill each other. I am certain of killing you, but I shan't escape myself. Well, then, why not toss for it? Equal chances for both, and certain safety for one. Will you toss me, the one who loses to give up his pistol to the other?”

“It seems to me a good idea,” Deede Dawson argued. “Here we are watching each other like cats, and knowing that the least movement of either will start the other off, and both of us pulling trigger as hard as we can. My idea would mean a chance for one. Well, let's try another way; the best shot to win. You don't trust me, but I will you.”

Leaving his pistol lying where he had put it down, he crossed the attic, and with a pencil he took from his pocket drew a circle on the panel of the wardrobe door that Rupert had split with the inkpot he had thrown.

In the centre of the circle he marked a dot, and turned smilingly to the frowning and suspicious Rupert.

“There you are,” he said, and made another circle near the first one. “Now you put a bullet into the middle of this circle and I'll put one afterwards through the second circle, and the one who is nearest to the dots I've marked, wins. What have you to say to that? Seems to me better than our killing each other. Isn't it?”

“I think you're playing the fool for some reason of your own,” answered Rupert. “There's only one thing I want to know from you. Where is Ella?”

“Let me know how you can shoot,” answered Deede Dawson, “and I'll tell you, by all that's holy, I will.”

Rupert hesitated. He did not understand all this, he could not imagine what motive was in Deede Dawson's mind, though it was certainly true enough that once they began shooting at each other neither man was at all likely to survive, for Rupert knew he would not miss and he did not think Deede Dawson would either.

Above all, there was the one thing he wished to know, the one consideration that weighed with him above all others—what had become of Ella? And this time there had been in Deede Dawson's voice an accent of twisted and malign sincerity that seemed to say he really would be willing to tell the truth about her if Rupert would gratify his whim about this sort of shooting-match that he was suggesting.

The purpose of it Rupert could not understand, but it did not seem to him there would be any risk of harm in agreeing, for Deede Dawson was standing so far away from his own weapon he could not well be contemplating any immediate mischief or treachery.

It did occur to him that the pistol he held might be loaded in one chamber only and that Deede Dawson might be scheming to induce him to throw away his solitary cartridge.

But a glance reassured him on that point.

“Let me see how you can shoot,” Deede Dawson repeated, leaning carelessly with folded arms against the wall a little distance away. “And I promise you I'll tell you where Ella is.”

Rupert lifted his pistol and was indeed on the very point of firing when he caught a glimpse of such evil triumph and delight in Deede Dawson's cold eyes that he hesitated and lowered the weapon, and at the same time, looking more closely, searching more intently for some indication of Deede Dawson's hidden purpose, he noticed, caught in the crack of the wardrobe door, a tiny shred of some blue material only just visible.

He remembered that sometimes of an afternoon Ella had been accustomed to wear a frock made of a material exactly like that of which so tiny a fragment showed now in the crack of the wardrobe door.