Part 52 (2/2)
The captain shook his head. ”I cannot agree with you, sir; I cannot think that that cravat, blood-stained and soiled, was left in the summer-house by any village loafer. Village loafers, sir, do not, as a general thing, wear such cravats, nor stain them with anything darker than the drippings of their lager-bier.”
”I know you'll all laugh at me,”' said Ellerton Wynkar, ”but, absurd as it is, I can't help thinking I've seen that cravat worn by----. Good heavens! what's the matter now! Mrs. Churchill, your niece is going to faint!”
”Oh no!” said Grace, coolly pa.s.sing me a gla.s.s of water. ”Only turning white and looking distractingly pretty, then rallying a little, and looking up and saying faintly, 'I'm better, thank you,' and regaining composure gradually and gracefully. That's the programme. We're quite used to it by this time. When I have a _fiance_ who must go to Europe, I shall be perfected in the art of graceful grief if I attend properly to the example I have now before me.”
”There's one art you're not perfected in at all events,” said Phil.
”What's that, bonnie Phil; what's that?”
”The art of feeling,” said her cousin, shortly.
”Grace is thoughtless,” said her mother, and entered into an apology so elaborate, that Phil was really distressed, and felt that he had been most unkind and unjust. He gave his hand to Grace, and said, with an honest smile:
”I didn't mean any reproach, Gracie, only you know you _are_ a tease!”
”But, sir,” continued the captain, unable to relinquish the subject that most interested him, ”do you really feel that everything has been done toward the clearing up of this mystery that lays within your power?
Don't you think that if some stronger measures were taken, some more detectives placed on the track, the thing might be ferreted out? It's aggravating to one's feelings to think that the villain may be within pistol shot of us, and get clear after all.”
”It makes me so nervous,” said Ella Wynkar, ”I can't sleep at night, and Josephine makes Frances barricade the doors and windows as if we were preparing to stand a siege.”
”It's truly horrible,” said Josephine, with a shudder. ”I wouldn't go half a dozen yards from the house alone for any consideration.”
”Yes, Joseph, you are a coward, there's no denying it. Mr. Rutledge, what do you think of a girl of her age looking in all the closets, and even the bureau drawers, before she goes to bed at night, and making Frances sit beside her till she gets asleep?”
”I really think,” said Mr. Rutledge, rising from the table, ”that you are all alarming yourselves unnecessarily. Every precaution has been taken to insure the arrest of any suspicious person, and there is no danger of any abatement in the zeal and activity of our rustic police.
The woods and neighborhood are swarming with volunteer detectives, and till the offer of the reward is withdrawn, you may rest a.s.sured that their a.s.siduity will not be. I think the young ladies may omit the nightly barricading, and excuse Frances from mounting guard after eleven o'clock. I should not advise your walking very far from the house unattended, but beyond that, really, I think you need not take any trouble.”
”And really _I_ think,” muttered the captain, as we moved into the hall, ”that he takes it very coolly. Upon my word, I didn't think he was the man to let such a thing as this be pa.s.sed over in such an indifferent way.”
”G.o.d bless him for it!” I thought in my heart.
”Stephen is waiting at the door to speak with you, sir,” said Thomas to his master. Stephen's face expressed such a volume of alarm and importance, that we involuntarily stopped in the hall, as he answered Mr. Rutledge's inquiry as to his errand.
”The body of a man, sir, has just been found in the lake. It has evidently been there a day or more. The men are down there, sir; I came immediately up to let you know.”
Mr. Rutledge gave a hurried glance at me, as he said quickly:
”Possibly one of the laborers. I will go down with you at once.”
Capt. McGuffy, with an I-told-you-so nod to Phil, s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat, and, followed by the other gentlemen, hurried with Stephen toward the lake.
The ladies, in a frightened group, cl.u.s.tered together on the lawn and watched them from a distance.
How well I could have told them who it was, and how long the bloated, disfigured corpse had lain floating among the reeds and alder-bushes at the head of the lake! How their ears, indeed, would tingle, if they should know the quarter part of what I knew. How sleepless and terrified Josephine's nights might well be, if she knew that a single foot of brick and mortar was all that separated her from the execrated murderer, with the horror of whose crime the country rang. How doubly aghast she would be, if she knew that the murderer was none other than the guest she had herself invited to Rutledge--the brilliant and clever man whose admiration she had vainly striven to obtain--the affianced husband of her cousin! What if they knew all this? What if my brain should give way under the pressure of this dreadful secret, and I should betray all!
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