Part 10 (1/2)
”After a long tramp on the hills he took to a place of hiding. I am bound by oath to afford no clue as to where that place is, and can only say that upon my following him in, I was pounced upon by some French smugglers who were there with him, and trussed up like a fowl. Then there was a discussion what to do with me, in which the man I had been following joined. Of course I did not understand the language, but I could see that the smugglers were in favour of cutting my throat for having discovered their hiding-place, and that the man himself was, contrary to what I should have expected, arguing in my favour. He had been a smuggler as well as a poacher, but although he had murdered Mr. Faulkner, and knew that I had pursued him for that crime, he undoubtedly saved my life. They first made me take an oath not to reveal their hiding-place, and then said that they should carry me over to France, and would take steps so that I should not return to England for some years.
”What those steps will be I cannot say, but I feel sure that they will in some way prevent my coming back for a long time. They can't keep me themselves, but may hand me over as a prisoner to the French authorities. Before we sailed the man told me he had learnt that a warrant was out against me for the murder of Faulkner, and that Faulkner had declared it was I who shot him. If I could possibly have escaped I would have come back to stand my trial, though I can see plainly enough that it might go very hard with me, for there would be only my word, which would go for nothing against Faulkner's accusation, and the fact of our quarrel. However, I would have come rather than disappear with this awful charge against me. The man has given me permission, not only to write and tell you this story, but even to give you his name, which is Joseph Markham. He had only been a short time out of prison, where he had been sent for poaching, and he killed Faulkner simply for revenge. He told me that he did not mind my getting his name as, in the first place, he had no idea of returning to Weymouth, and intended making France his home; and, in the second place, because, although you might believe my story, no one else would, and even if he showed himself in Weymouth, this letter, written by a man accused of the murder, would not be accepted for a moment against him. However, there is no doubt that the fellow has behaved extremely well to me, and I should be sorry to get him into trouble over this business with Faulkner, which is no affair of mine.
”You can, of course, show this letter to whom you like, but I don't expect anyone except you and Aunt to believe it. I have hopes of being cleared some day, for Markham has promised me to write out a full confession of his shooting Faulkner, and to swear to it before a French magistrate. He is going to write it in duplicate, and carry one copy about with him, directed to Colonel Chambers, or the senior magistrate at Weymouth, and to send the other copy to someone at home, who will produce it in case of his death in France, or by drowning at sea. I do not think that, if I get away, I shall return to England until I hear of his death. I am awfully sorry for you, old fellow, and for Aunt. But with this frightful accusation hanging over me, I don't think your position would be better if I were to come back and be hung for murder; and I see myself that the case is so strong against me that it would almost certainly come to that if they laid hands on me. I am specially sorry that this trouble should come upon you now, just as you were going to try to get a commission, for of course they could hardly give one to a fellow whose brother is accused of murder, and if they did, your position in the army would be intolerable. Now, good-bye, dear old Frank; give my fond love to Aunt, who has always been too good to me. If I get an opportunity I will write again, but I hardly fancy that I shall get a chance to do so, as, even if I were free to write I don't see how letters can be sent from France except through smugglers. G.o.d bless you, old fellow.
”Your unfortunate brother,
”Julian.”
Happily, by the time he had finished reading the letter, the servant had succeeded in restoring Mrs. Troutbeck.
”It is exactly what we thought, Aunt. Julian was seized by smugglers, and has been taken over to France, and I am afraid it will be some time before he gets back again, especially as he believes that this charge is hanging over him. I won't read you the letter now, but to-morrow when you are strong enough you shall read it yourself. I must take it the first thing in the morning to Colonel Chambers, who will, I am sure, be very glad to hear that Julian is safe, for I know that he thinks he was shot by the man he pursued. He will be interested, too, and so will Mr. Henderson, at seeing how exactly we were right in the conclusions we arrived at.”
Mrs. Troutbeck was quite satisfied with the explanation, and was at once taken up to bed by the servant, while Frank, seeing that it was as yet but eight o'clock, put on his cap and ran to Mr. Henderson's. The latter was at home, and received with great pleasure the news that Julian was alive. He read the letter through attentively.
”If we had seen the whole thing happen, we could not have been closer than we were in our conclusion as to how it all came about. Well, the news that it is Markham who shot Mr. Faulkner does not surprise me, for, as you know, I have already a warrant out against him on the charge. I fear that there is little chance that we shall lay hands on him now, for he will doubtless learn from some of his a.s.sociates here of the evidence given at the coroner's inquest, and that your brother has been proved altogether innocent of the crime. I can understand that, believing, as he did, the evidence against Mr. Wyatt to be overwhelming, he had no great objection to his giving his name; for, as the matter then stood, your brother's story would only have been regarded as the attempt of a guilty man to fix the blame of his crime on another. As it has turned out, the letter is a piece of important evidence that might be produced against Markham, for all the statements in it tally with the facts we have discovered for ourselves. Still I congratulate you most heartily. I certainly thought that your brother had been murdered, though our efforts to find any traces of the crime have failed altogether. I am afraid, as he says, it will be a long time before he manages to get away; still, that is a comparatively unimportant matter, and all that I can hope is that this fellow Markham will come to a speedy end. Of course you will show this letter to everyone, for now that n.o.body believes for a moment that your brother was Mr. Faulkner's murderer, everyone will be glad to hear that the mystery is cleared up, and that he is simply in France instead of being, as all supposed, buried in some hole where his body would never be discovered.
”All that can possibly be said against him now is that he behaved rashly in following a desperate man instead of coming back to us for a.s.sistance; but I quite see that, under the circ.u.mstance of his relations with the magistrate, he was doubly anxious to bring the latter's murderer to justice, and, as we now know, the latter would certainly have got away unsuspected had your brother not acted as he did.”
Colonel Chambers was equally pleased when Frank called upon him the next morning, and begged him, after showing the letter to his friends, to hand it over to him for safe keeping, as, in the event of Markham ever being arrested, it would be valuable, if not as evidence, as affording a.s.sistance to the prosecution.
”Do you think, Colonel Chambers, that they will be able to keep Julian away for a long time?”
”If his supposition is a correct one, and they intend to hand him over to the French authorities as a prisoner of war, it may be a long time before you hear of him. There are many towns all over France where English prisoners are confined, and it would be practically impossible to find out where he is, or to obtain his release if you did find out, while the two nations are at war. There are very few exchanges made, and the chances of his being among them would be very small. However, lad, things might have been a great deal worse. This tremendous war cannot go on for ever. Your brother is strong and healthy; he seems to be, from all I hear, just the sort of fellow who would take things easily, and although the lot of prisoners of war, whether in England or France, cannot be called a pleasant one, he has a fairer chance than most, of going through it unharmed.
”The experience may be of benefit to him. Of course, when this matter first began, I made close enquiries in several quarters as to his character and habits. I need not say that I heard nothing whatever against him; but there was a sort of consensus of opinion that it was a pity that he had not some pursuit or occupation. As you know, he mixed himself up to some extent with smugglers, he spent his evenings frequently in billiard-rooms, and altogether, though there was nothing absolutely against him, it was clear that he was doing himself no good.”
”He had given up the billiard-table,” Frank said. ”He promised me that he would not go there any more, and I am sure he wouldn't.”
”I am glad to hear it, lad; still I think that this experience will do him good rather than harm. He was a kindly, good-tempered, easy-going young fellow, a little deficient, perhaps, in strength of will, but very generally liked, and with the making of a fine man about him; and yet he was likely, from sheer easiness of temper and disinclination to settle down to anything, to drift with the stream till he ruined his life. That is how I read his character from what I have heard of him, and that being so, I think this complete break in his life may ultimately be of considerable benefit to him.”
”Perhaps it will, sir. A better brother never lived, but he may have been too ready to fall in with other people's views. I think that it was a very great pity that he did not apply for a commission in the army.”
”A great pity,” Colonel Chambers agreed. ”A young fellow who will start in pursuit of a desperate man who is armed with a gun, would be the sort of fellow to lead a forlorn hope. And what are you going to do, Frank?”
”I am going to try and get a commission, sir, now that Julian is completely cleared. I shall set about it at once. I am sixteen now. Colonel Wilson, with whom my father served in Spain, wrote at his death, and said that if either of us wished for a commission, he would, when the time came, use his influence to get him one, and that after father's services he was sure there would be no difficulty about it.”
”None whatever. Colonel Wyatt's sons have almost a right to a commission. If you will write to Sir Robert Wilson at once, and let me know when you get his reply, I will write to a friend at the Horse-guards and get him to back up the request as soon as it is sent in.”
Three weeks later Frank received an official doc.u.ment, informing him that he had been gazetted to the 15th Light Dragoons, and was to join the depot of his regiment at Canterbury immediately. Mrs. Troutbeck had been consulted by Frank before he wrote to Colonel Sir R. Wilson. As it had, since Julian decided not to enter the army, been a settled thing that Frank should apply for a commission, she had offered no objection.
”It is only right, my dear,” she said, with tears in her eyes and a little break in her voice, ”that one of my dear brother's sons should follow in his footsteps. I know that he always wished you both to join the army, and as Julian had no fancy for it, I am glad that you should go. Of course it will be a trial, a great trial to me; but a young man must go on his own path, and it would be wrong indeed for an old woman like me to stand in his way.”
”I don't know, Aunt, that it is so. That is my only doubt about applying for the commission. I can't help thinking that it is my duty to stay with you until Julian comes back.”
”Not at all, Frank. It would make me much more unhappy seeing you wasting your life here, than in knowing you were following the course you had marked for yourself. I shall do very well. Mary is a very good and attentive girl, and I shall get another in to do most of her work, so that she can sit with me and be a sort of companion. Then, you know, there are very few afternoons that one or other of my friends do not come in for an hour for a gossip or I go in to them. I take a good deal of blame to myself for all this trouble that has come to Julian. I think that if, three years ago, I had pressed it upon him that he ought to go into the army, he would have done so; but certainly anything that I did say was rather the other way, and since he has gone I see how wrong I was, and I certainly won't repeat the mistake with you. Even now Julian may come back long before you go. I don't mean before you go away from here, but before you go out to join your regiment, wherever that may be. You are sure to be a few months at the depot, and you know we have agreed to write letters to Julian, telling him that the matter is all cleared up, and that everyone knows he had nothing to do with the murder, so of course he will try to escape as soon as he gets one of them.”
”Yes, when he gets one, Aunt. I will give the letters to men who are, I know, connected with the smugglers, and possibly they may be taken over, but that is a very different thing from his getting them. We may be sure that the smugglers who have taken Julian over will not trouble themselves about detaining him. They would never go to all the bother of keeping and watching him for years. If they keep him at all it will be on board their craft, but that would be a constant trouble, and they would know that sooner or later he would be able to make his escape. If they have handed him over to the French authorities he may have been taken to a prison hundreds of miles from Nantes, and the smugglers would not know where he was and would be unable to send a letter to him. No, Aunt, I feel confident that Julian will come home, but I am afraid that it will be a long time first, for as to his escaping from prison, there is no chance whatever of it. There are numbers of English officers there; many of them must be able to speak French well, and the naval officers are able to climb ropes and things of that sort that Julian could not do. It is very rare indeed that any of them, even with these advantages, make their escape, and therefore I cannot hope that Julian will be able to do so.”
”Well, then, my dear, I must wait patiently until he does. I only hope that I may be spared to see him back again.”