The Bittermeads Mystery/Chapter 8

Up the stairs, across the landing, and down the passage opposite Dunn went in silence, shepherded by the little man behind whose pistol was still levelled and still steady.

His hands held high in the air, he pushed open with his knee the door of the girl's room and entered, and she looked up as he did so with an expression of pure astonishment at his attitude of upheld hands that changed to one of comprehension and of faint amusement as Deede Dawson followed, revolver in hand.

“Oh,” she murmured. “Captivity captive, it seems.”

At the fireplace Dunn turned and found her looking at him very intently, while from the doorway Deede Dawson surveyed them both, for once his eyes appearing to share in the smile that played about his lips as though he found much satisfaction in what he saw.

“Well, Ella,” he said. “You've been having adventures, it seems, but you don't look too comfortable like that.”

“Nor do I feel it,” she retorted. “So please set me free.”

“Yes, so I will,” he answered, but he still hesitated, and Dunn had the idea that he was pleased to see the girl like this, and would leave her so if he could, and that he was wondering now if he could turn her predicament to his own advantage in any way.

“Yes, I will,” he said again. “Your mother—?”

“She hasn't wakened,” Ella answered. “I don't think she has heard anything. I don't suppose she will, for she took two of those pills last night that Dr. Rawson gave her for when she couldn't sleep.”

“It's just as well she did,” said Deede Dawson.

“Yes, but please undo my hands,” she asked him. “The cords are cutting my wrists dreadfully.”

As she spoke she glanced at Dunn, standing by the fireplace and listening gravely to what they said, and Deede Dawson exclaimed with an air of great indignation:—

“The fellow deserves to be well thrashed for treating you like that. I've a good mind to do it, too, before handing him over to the police.”

“But you haven't released me yet,” she remarked.

“Oh, yes, yes,” he said, starting as if this were quite a new idea. “I'll release you at once—but I must watch this scoundrel. He must have frightened you dreadfully.”

“Indeed he did not,” she answered quickly, again looking at Dunn. “No, he didn't,” she said again with a touch of defiance in her manner and a certain slightly lifting her small, round chin. “At least not much after just at first,” she added.

“I'll loose you,” Deede Dawson said once more, and coming up to her, he began to fumble in a feeble, ineffectual way at the cords that secured her wrists.

“Jove, he's tied you up pretty tight, Ella!” he said.

“He believes in doing his work thoroughly, I suppose,” she remarked, lifting her eyes to Dunn's with a look in them that was partly questioning and partly puzzled and wholly elusive. “I daresay he always likes to do everything thoroughly.”

“Seems so,” said Deede Dawson, giving up his fumbling and ineffectual efforts to release her.

He stepped back and stood behind her chair, looking from her to Dunn and back again, and once more Dunn was conscious of an impression that he wished to make use for his own purposes of the girl's position, but that he did not know how to do so.

“You are a nice scoundrel,” said Deede Dawson suddenly, with an indignation that seemed to Dunn largely assumed. “Treating a girl like this. Ella, what would you like done to him? He deserves shooting. Shall I put a bullet through him for you?”

“He might have treated me worse, I suppose,” said Ella quietly. “And if you would be less indignant with him, you might be more help to me. There are scissors on the table somewhere.”

“I'll get them,” Deede Dawson said. “I'll get them,” he repeated, as though now at last finally making up his mind. He took the scissors from the toilet-table where they lay before the looking-glass and cut the cords by which Ella was secured.

With a sigh of relief she straightened herself from the confined position in which she had been held and began to rub her wrists, which were slightly inflamed where the cords had bruised her soft skin.

“Like to tie him up that way now?” asked Deede Dawson. “You shall if you like.”

She turned and looked full at Dunn and he looked back at her with eyes as steady and as calm as her own.

Again she showed that faint doubt and wonder which had flickered through her level gaze before as though she felt that there was more in all this than was apparent, and did not wish to condemn him utterly without a hearing.

But it was plain also that she did not wish to say too much before her stepfather and she answered carelessly:

“I don't think I could tie him tight enough, besides, he looks ridiculous enough like that with his hands up in the air.”

It was her revenge for what he had made her suffer. He felt himself flush and he knew that she knew that her little barbed shaft had struck home.

“Well, go and look through his pockets,” Deede Dawson said. “And see if he's got a revolver. Don't be frightened; if he lowers his hands he'll be a dead man before he knows it.”

“He has a pistol,” she said. “He showed it me, it's in his coat pocket.”

“Better get it then,” Deede Dawson told her. She obeyed and brought him the weapon, and he nodded with satisfaction as he put it in his own pocket.

“I think we might let you put your hands down now,” he remarked, and Dunn gladly availed himself of the permission, for every muscle in his arms was aching badly.

He remained standing by the wall while Deede Dawson, seating himself on the chair to which Ella had been bound, rested his chin on his left hand and, with the pistol still ready in his right, regarded Dunn with a steady questioning gaze.

Ella was standing near the bed. She had poured a few drops of eau-de-Cologne on her wrists and was rubbing them softly, and for ever after the poignant pleasant odour of the scent has remained associated in Robert Dunn's mind with the strange events of that night so that always even the merest whiff of it conjures up before his mind a picture of that room with himself silent by the fireplace and Ella silent by the bed and Deede Dawson, pistol in hand, seated between them, as silent also as they, and very watchful.

Ella appeared fully taken up with her occupation and might almost have forgotten the presence of the two men. She did not look at either of them, but continued to rub and chafe her wrists softly.

Deede Dawson had forgotten for once to smile, his brow was slightly wrinkled, his cold grey eyes intent and watchful, and Dunn felt very sure that he was thinking out some plan or scheme.

The hope came to him that Deede Dawson was thinking he might prove of use, and that was the thought which, above all others, he wished the other to have. It was, indeed, that thought which all his recent actions had been aimed to implant in Deede Dawson's mind till his dreadful discovery in the attic had seemed to make at last direct action possible. How, in his present plight that thought, if Deede Dawson should come to entertain it, might yet prove his salvation. Now and again Deede Dawson gave him quick, searching glances, but when at last he spoke it was Ella he addressed.

“Wrists hurt you much?” he asked.

“Not so much now,” she answered. “They were beginning to hurt a great deal, though.”

“Were they, though?” said Deede Dawson. “And to think you might have been like that for hours if I hadn't chanced to come home. Too bad, what a brute this fellow is.”

“Men mostly are, I think,” she observed indifferently.

“And women mostly like to get their own back again,” he remarked with a chuckle, and then turned sharply to Dunn. “Well, my man,” he asked, “what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Nothing,” Dunn answered. “It was a fair cop.”

“You've had a taste of penal servitude before, I suppose?” Deede Dawson asked.

“Maybe,” Dunn answered, as if not wishing to betray himself. “Maybe not.”

“Well, I think I remember you said something about not being long out of Dartmoor,” remarked Deede Dawson. “How do you relish the prospect of going back there?”

“I wonder,” interposed Ella thoughtfully. “I wonder what it is in you that makes you so love to be cruel, father?”

“Eh what?” he exclaimed, quite surprised. “Who's being cruel?”

“You,” she answered. “You enjoy keeping him wondering what you are going to do with him, just as you enjoyed seeing me tied to that chair and would have liked to leave me there.”

“My dear Ella!” he protested. “My dear child!”

“Oh, I know,” she said wearily. “Why don't you hand the man over to the police if you're going to, or let him go at once if you mean to do that?”

“Let him go, indeed!” exclaimed Deede Dawson. “What an idea! What should I do that for?”

“If you'll give me another chance,” said Dunn quickly, “I'll do anything—I should get it pretty stiff for this lot, and that wouldn't be any use to you, sir, would it? I can do almost anything—garden, drive a motor, do what I'm told, It's only because I've never had a chance I've had to take to this line.”

“If you could do what you're told you certainly might be useful,” said Deede Dawson slowly. “And I don't know that it would do me any good to send you off to prison—you deserve it, of course. Still—you talk sometimes like an educated man?”

“I had a bit of education,” Dunn answered.

“I see,” said Deede Dawson. “Well, I won't ask you any more questions, you'd probably only lie. What's your name?”

With that sudden recklessness which was a part of his impulsive and passionate nature, Dunn answered:

“Charley Wright.”

The effect was instantaneous and apparent on both his auditors.

Ella gave a little cry and started so violently that she dropped the bottle of eau-de-Cologne she had in her hands.

Deede Dawson jumped to his feet with a fearful oath. His face went livid, his fat cheeks seemed suddenly to sag, of his perpetual smile every trace vanished.

He swung his revolver up, and Dunn saw the crooked forefinger quiver as though in the very act of pressing the trigger.

The pressure of a hair decided, indeed, whether the weapon was to fire or not, as in a high-pitched, stammering voice, Deede Dawson gasped:

“What—what do you mean? What do you mean by that?”

“I only told you my name,” Dunn answered. “What's wrong with it?”

Doubtful and afraid, Deede Dawson stood hesitant. His forehead had become very damp, and he wiped it with a nervous gesture.

“Is that your name—your real name?” he muttered.

“Never had another that I know of,” Dunn answered.

Deede Dawson sat down again on the chair. He was still plainly very disturbed and shaken, and Ella seemed scarcely less agitated, though Dunn, watching them both very keenly, noticed that she was now looking at Deede Dawson with a somewhat strange expression and with an air as though his extreme excitement puzzled her and made her—afraid.

“Nothing wrong with the name, is there?” Dunn muttered again.

“No, no,” Deede Dawson answered. “No. It's merely a coincidence, that's all. A coincidence, I suppose, Ella?”

Ella did not answer. Her expression was very troubled and full of doubt as she stood looking from her stepfather to Dunn and back again.

“It's only that your name happens to be the same as that of a friend of ours—a great friend of my daughter's,” Deede Dawson said as though he felt obliged to offer some explanation. “That's all—a coincidence. It startled me for the moment.” He laughed. “That's all. Well, my man, it happens there is something I can make you useful in. If you do prove useful and do what I tell you, perhaps you may get let off. I might even keep you on in a job. I won't say I will, but I might. You look a likely sort of fellow for work, and I daresay you aren't any more dishonest than most people. Funny how things happen—quite a coincidence, your name. Well, come on; it's that packing-case you saw in the attic upstairs. I want you to help me downstairs with that—Charley Wright.”