The Skeleton Key/Chapter 16

that was present at that scene could ever forget its anguish and pathos? Its fierce dramatic intensity will remain for all time indelibly seared on my soul. Could I believe in my friend's guilt? Knowing him, it was impossible: and yet that seemingly incontrovertible evidence as to when the shot was fired? If he had done it, if he had done it, not his own nature but some fiend temporarily in possession of it must have directed his hand. But I would not believe he had done it. I would not, until I had heard him confess to it with his own lips. However appearances might be against him, he should find an unshakable ally in me. And if the worst were to come to the worst, and the trial confirm his guilt beyond dispute, there would be that yet for me to plead in revision of my former evidence so cruelly surprised from me, to plead in virtue of my intimacy with the unhappy boy—that in the moods to which he was subject he was apt to lose complete control of himself, and to behave on occasions veritably like a madman. It might mitigate, extenuate—who could say? But in the meantime I would not believe—not though the world accused him.

Before he was taken away he and his father met in a room below the Court. Sir Calvin, coming across the floor after the committal, looked like a white figure of Death—Death stark, but in motion. He walked straight on, avoiding nobody; but a little stagger as he passed near me was eloquent of his true state. I was moved impulsively to hold out my arm to him, and he took it blindly, and we descended the stairs together. In a bare vault-like office we found my poor friend. He was in charge of the two policemen who had arrested him. His deadly pallor was all gone, and succeeded by a vivid flush. He held out his hand with a steadfast smiling look.

'Take it or not, sir,' he said.

It was taken, and hard wrung—just that one moment's understanding—and the two fell apart.

'Thank you, sir,' said the boy simply. 'I did not do it, of course.'

The father laughed; it wrung one to hear him, and to see his face.

'One of your judges, Hughie,' he said, wheezing hilariously—'old Crosson; you know him—told me not to lose heart—that appearances weren't always to be trusted. He ought to know, eh, after three attempts?'

'I wanted you just to hear me say,' said the other hurriedly, 'that I'm glad it's come—not the way it has, but the truth. I've behaved like a blackguard, sir, and it's been weighing on me; you don't know how it's been weighing. It's been making my life hell for some little time past. But now you know, and it's the worst of me—bad enough, but not the unutterable brute they'd make me out.' He turned to me. 'So they got at you, Viv.,' he said. 'Never mind, old boy; you meant the best.'

'It was an infamous breach of confidence,' I burst out. 'It was that Sergeant led me on.'

'Yes,' said Hugh: 'I supposed he was at the bottom of all this. But I can't help his witnesses. It was the truth I told.'

'He has betrayed the house,' I said hotly, 'he was engaged to serve.'

But to this Sir Calvin, greatly to my surprise and indignation, demurred, in a hoarse broken way: 'If he thought his duty lay this road, it was his business like an honest man to take it. We want no absolution on sufferance—eh, Hughie, my boy?'

'No, sir, no. You will see that I am properly advised as to the best way to go to clear myself. Thank God my mother isn't alive!'

It was said with the first shadow of a break in his voice, and the General could not stand it. He gave a little gasp, and turned away, his fingers working at his moustache.

'She'll see to it, Hughie,' he said indistinctly, 'that—that it's all made right. There was never a more truth-loving woman in the world. But you shall have your advice—for form's sake—the best that can be procured.'

'Thank you, sir.'

It was intimated that the interview must end. The two men just faced one another—an unforgetable [sic] look; and then the father turned, and, rigid as a sleep-walker, passed out of the room without another word. I lingered behind a moment, just to whisper my friend bonne chance; then hurried after the retreating figure. We entered the car in silence, and drove off alone together, leaving the household witnesses to follow later. All the way it must have lain in the mind of the stiff figure beside me with what other expectations, in what other company, we had made the outward journey. I thought it best not to disturb him; and we reached the house without a solitary sentence. I believe, having passed between us. Once there, Sir Calvin walked straight into his study, and I saw him no more that day.

What was the true thought in his heart? faith scornful and triumphant, or some secret misgiving? Who could tell? Perhaps for the first time some doubts as to his own qualifications as a father were beginning to move in him, some tragic self-searching for the seed of what might or might not be in this 'fruit of his blood.' The day stole by on hushed wings; a sense of still fatality brooded over the house. The voiceless, almost unpeopled quiet told upon my nerves, and kept me wandering, aimless and solitary, from room to room. Near evening, Audrey was sent for by her father. I saw her, and saw her for the first time since our return, as she disappeared into his study. What passed between them there one could only surmise, but at least it was marked by no audible sounds of emotion. In that dead oppression I would have welcomed even her company; but she never came near me, and I was left to batten as I would on my own poisonous reflections. They passed and passed in, review, with sickening iteration, the same wearisome problems—the evidence, my hateful and unwilling share in it, my friend's dreadful situation. Against the detective I felt a bitter animosity. No wonder that, conscious of his treachery to his employer, as I still persisted in regarding it, his manner had changed of late, and he had held himself aloof from us. Even that cynical official fibre, I supposed, could not be entirely insensitive to the indecency of eating the salt of him he was planning to betray. I was so wrath with him that I could have wished, if for no other reason than his discomfiture, to vindicate my friend's innocence. The thought sent me harking back once more over familiar ground. If Hugh were innocent, who was guilty? If another could be proved guilty, or even reasonably suspect, the whole evidence against the prisoner fell into discredit. Who, then?'

Now, not this overwhelming business itself had been enough to dismiss wholly from my mind its haunting suspicions regarding the Baron. So secret, so subtle, so inexplicable, could it still be possible that he was somehow implicated in the affair? If not, was it not at least remarkable that it should have coincided with his coming, involved his servant, been followed by that midnight theft of the paper? And then suddenly there came to me, with a little shock of the blood, a memory of our conversation in the keeper's cottage on the fatal day of the shoot. How curious he had been then on the subject of poachers, of their methods, of their proneness to violence on occasion! He had asked so innocently yet shown such shrewdness in his questions, that even Orsden had laughingly commented on the discrepancy. And that mention of the muffling properties of a mist in the matter of a gunshot! Why, it was as if he had wished to assure himself of the adequacy of some precaution already calculated and taken to mislead and bewilder in a certain issue!

The thought came upon me like a thunderclap. Was it, could it be possible that some blackguard poacher had been made the instrument of a diabolical plot—perhaps that fourth shadowy figure that had never materialised; perhaps Henstridge himself, who had volunteered the damning evidence, and whom it would be one's instinct to mistrust? Le Sage and Henstridge in collusion! Was it an inspiration? Did I stand on the threshold of a tremendous discovery? In spite of the feverish excitement which suddenly possessed me, I could still reason against my own theory. The motive? What possible motive in murdering an unoffending servant girl? Again, what time had been the Baron's in which to complot so elaborate a crime?

But, supposing it had all been arranged beforehand, before ever he came? I had not overlooked the mystery attaching to the girl herself. It might cover, for all one knew, a very labyrinthine intrigue of vengeance and spoliation.

And then in a moment my thought swerved, and the memory of Cleghorn returned to me—Cleghorn, white and abject, grasping the rail of the dock. Cleghorn fainting where he stood. What terrific emotion had thus prostrated the man, relieved from an intolerable oppression? Was mere revulsion of feeling enough to account for it, or was it conceivable that he too was, after all, concerned in the business, a third party, and overwhelmed under his sense of unexpected escape from what he had regarded as his certain doom?

I was getting into deep waters. I stood aghast before my own imagination. How was I to deal with its creations?

It was an acute problem, my decision on which was reached only after long deliberation. It was this: I would keep all my suspicions and theories to myself until I could confide them to the ear of the Counsel engaged on Hugo's behalf.

In the meantime some relief from the moral stagnation of Wildshott had become apparent with the opening of the day succeeding the inquiry. That deadly lethargy which had followed the first stunning blow was in part shaken off, and the household, though in hushed vein, began to resume its ordinary duties. Sir Calvin himself reappeared, white and drawn, but showing no disposition to suffer commiseration in any form, or any relaxation from his iron discipline. The events of the next few days I will pass over at short length. They yielded some pathos, embraced some preparations, included a visit. I may mention here a decision of the General's which a little, in one direction, embarrassed my designs. Just or unjust to the man, he would not have Cleghorn back. One could not wonder, perhaps, over his determination; yet I could have preferred for the moment not to lose sight of my suspect. We heard later that the butler, as if anticipating his dismissal, had gone, directly after his release, up to London, where, no doubt, he could be found if wanted. I had to console myself with that reflection. The valet, Louis, we came to learn about the same time, had taken refuge, pending his master's return—he had got to hear somehow of the Baron's absence—with an excellent Roman Catholic lady, who had pitied his case and offered him employment. He had no desire, very certainly, to return to a house where he had suffered so much.

Of a visit I was allowed to pay my friend in the prison I do not wish to say a great deal. The interview took place in a room with a grating between us and a warder present. The circumstances were inexpressibly painful, but I think I felt them more than Hugo. He was cheery and optimistic—outspoken too in a way that touched me to the quick.

'I want to tell you everything, Viv.,' he said hurriedly, below his breath; 'I want to get it all off my chest. You guessed the truth, of course; but not the whole of it. There was one thing—I'd like you to tell my father, if you will—it makes me out a worse cur than I admitted, but I can't feel clean till I've said it. It began this way. I surprised the girl over some tricky business—God forgive her and me; that's enough said about it!—and I bargained with her for my silence on terms. I'll say for myself that I knew already she was fond of me; but it doesn't excuse my behaving like a damned cad. Anyhow, she fell to it easily enough; and then the fat was in the fire. It blazed up when she discovered—you know. It seemed to turn her mad. She must be made honest—my wife—or she would kill herself, she said. I believe in the end I should have married her, if—Viv., old man, I loved that girl, I loved her God knows with what passion; yet, I tell you, my first emotion on discovering her dead was one of horrible relief. Call me an inhuman beast, if you will. I dare say it's true, but there it is. I was in such a ghastly hole, and my nerves had gone all to pieces over it. If I had done what she wished, it meant the end of everything for her and me. I knew the old man, and that he would never forgive such an alliance—would ruin and beggar us. I had been on a hellish rack, and was suddenly off it, and the momentary sensation was beyond my own control. Does the admission seem to blacken the case against me? I believe I know you better than to think so. I'm only accounting in a way for my behaviour on the night of the—the. Why, all the time, at the bottom of my soul, I was crying on my dead darling to come back to me, that I could not live without her. O, Viv.! why is it made so difficult for some men to go straight?'

He paused a moment, his head leaned down on his hands, which held on to the bars. I did not speak. His allusion to the 'tricky business' he had surprised the girl over was haunting my mind. How did it consort with my latent suspicion of a mystery somewhere?

'Hugh,' I said presently, 'you won't tell me what she was doing when you first'

'No, I won't,' he interrupted me bluntly. 'Think what she became to me, and allow me a little decency. I've told you all that's necessary—more than I had ever intended to tell you when I promised you my confidence. I'm sorry for that, Viv. God knows if I had spoken to you at first it might have altered things. But I couldn't make up my mind while a chance existed—or I thought it did. She put me out of my last conceit that day, swearing she was going to expose the whole story. It was all true that I said. She may have been waiting there on the chance of my passing: I swear I didn't know it. We had our few words, and I gave my promise and passed on. The evidence about the shot was a black lie. I can say no more than that.'

I give his words, and leave them at that, making no comment and drawing no conclusions. If his admission as to his first emotion on learning of his release might repel some people, I can only plead that one man's psychology, like one man's meat, may be impossible of digestion by another. I found it, I confess, hard to stomach myself; but then I had never been a spoilt and wayward only son.

We talked some little time longer on another matter, which had indeed been the main object of my visit—the nature of, and Counsel for, his defence. I had undertaken, at Sir Calvin's instance, to go to London and interview his lawyers on the subject, thus sparing the father the bitter trial of a preliminary explanation, and I told Hugo of my intention.

'What a good fellow you are, Viv.,' he said fondly. 'I don't deserve that you should take all this trouble, about me.'

'If I can only appear to justify my own indecent persistence in remaining on to help,' I said stiffly, 'I shall feel satisfied.'

I could not forbear the little thrust: that wounding remark of his had never ceased to rankle in me.

'Well, I asked for it,' he said, with a flushed smile. 'But don't nurse a grudge any longer. I was hardly accountable for what I said in those days: a man hardly is, you know, when he's on the rack.'

'O! I forgive you,' I answered. 'There's a virtue sometimes in pretending to a thick skin' and we parted on good terms.

My journey to London was arranged for the morrow after the interview. I had one of my passages with Audrey before going. I don't know what particular prejudice it was the girl cherished against me, but she would never let us be friends. I saw scarcely anything of her in these days, and when we did meet she would hardly speak to me. I could have wished even to propitiate her, because it was plain enough to me how the poor thing was suffering. Her pride and her affections—both of which, I think, were really deep-seated—were cruelly involved in the disgrace befallen them. They found some little compensation, perhaps, in the improved relations established between her father and herself. Circumstances had brought these two into closer and more sympathetic kinship; it was as if they had discovered between them a father and a daughter; and so far poor Hugo's catastrophe had wrought good. But still the girl's loneliness of heart was an evident thing. Pathetically grateful as she might be for the change in her father's attitude towards her, she could never get nearer to that despotic nature than its own limitations would permit.

'You are pining for your Baron, I suppose,' I said on this day, goaded at last to speak by her insufferable manner towards me. The taunt was effective, at least, in opening her mouth.

'You are always hinting unpleasant things about the Baron, Mr Bickerdike,' she answered, turning sharply on me. 'Don't you think it a little mean to be continually slandering him in that underhand way?'

I saw it was still to be battle, and prepared my guard.

'That is your perverse way of looking at it, Audrey,' I answered quietly. 'From my point of view, it is just trying to help my friends.'

'By maligning them to their enemies?' she answered. 'I suppose that was why you confided to Sergeant Ridgway all you knew about Hugh's affairs?'

It gave me a certain shock. I knew that she had read a full report of the proceedings, but not that she, or any one, had drawn such a cruel conclusion from it.

'Confided, is the word, Audrey,' I answered, with difficulty levelling my voice. 'I can't be held responsible for that breach of trust. Yes, thank you for that smile; but I know what was in my heart, and it was to help Hugh over a difficult place I foresaw for him. My weakness was in thinking other men as honourable as myself. But, anyhow, your stab is rather misplaced, since I wasn't "maligning," as you say, my friends to their enemies, but the other way about, as I see it.'

'Well, don't see it,' she said insolently. 'Perhaps—just consider it as possible—I may happen to know more about the Baron than you do.'

'O! I dare say he's been yarning to you' I answered, 'and quite plausibly enough to a credulous listener. But, if I were you, I wouldn't attach too much importance to what he tells you about himself. I'll say no more as to my own suspicions, though events have not modified them, I can assure you; but I will say that regard for your brother should at least incline you to go warily in a matter which may have a very strong bearing on his interests.'

She stood conning me a moment or two in silence.

'Please to be explicit,' she said then. 'Do you mean that you believe the Baron to be the real criminal?'

I positively jumped.

'Good Heavens!' I cried. 'Don't make me responsible for such wild statements. I mean only that, in the face of your brother's awful situation, you should be scrupulously careful to do nothing which might seem to impair the efforts of those who are working to throw new light on it. I don't say the Baron is the guilty one, but it is possible your brother is not.'

'Is that all?' she cried. She stepped right up to me, so that our faces were near touching. 'Mr Vivian Bickerdike,' she said, 'Hugh did not commit that murder. I tell you, in case you do not know.'

'I never said he did,' I answered, involuntarily backing a little, her eyes were so pugnacious. 'How you persist in misreading me! I only want to be prepared against all contingencies.'

'Amongst which, I suppose, is the Baron's wicked attempt to exculpate himself to me, by encouraging my suspicions against Hughie?' She laughed, with a sort of defiant sob in her voice. 'I'll tell you what I truly think: that he is a better friend to my brother than you are; and I hope he'll come back soon; and, when he does, I shall go on listening to and believing in him, as I do think I believe in no one else. And in the meantime I'll tell you this for your comfort: he is really English, and really the Baron Le Sage. He takes his title from an estate in the Cevennes, which was left him by a maternal uncle; and he is very rich, and I dare say very eccentric in wanting to do good with his money; and that is enough for the present.'

'And he plays chess for half-crowns and steals private papers!' I cried to myself scornfully, as she turned and left me.

Poor foolish creature. It was no good my trying to convince her, and I gave up the attempt then and there.