Part 7 (1/2)

Sir Charles showed no surprise. He stood very still for a moment, then he gave the man his two s.h.i.+llings, and walked to the gate where his horse was tied. Then he inquired the nearest way to the Quarry House, and he was pointed out a bridle-path running across fields to a hill.

As he mounted he asked another question.

”Mr. Ripley is alive?”

”Yes.”

”It must be Mr. Ripley,” Sir Charles a.s.sured himself, as he rode through the dusk of the evening. ”It must be ... It must be ...” until the words in his mind became a meaningless echo of his horse's hoofs.

He rode up the hill, left the bridle-path for the road, and suddenly, and long before he had expected, he saw beneath him the red square of the Quarry House and the smoke from its chimneys. He was on that very road up which he and Gibson Jerkley had looked that morning. Down that road, he had said, would come the man who knew how Major Lashley had disappeared, and within twelve hours down that road the man was coming. ”But it must be Mr. Ripley,” he said to himself.

None the less he took occasion at supper to speak of his ride.

”I rode by Leamington to Burley Wood. I went into the churchyard.”

Then he stopped, but as though the truth was meant to come to light, Resilda helped him out.

”I had a dear friend buried there not so long ago,” she said. ”Father, you remember Mrs. Ripley.”

”I saw her grave this afternoon,” said Fosbrook, with his eyes upon Mr. Mardale. It might have been a mere accident, it was in any case a trifling thing, the mere shaking of a hand, the spilling of a spoonful of salt upon the table, but trifling things have their suggestions.

He remembered that Resilda, when she had waked up on the night of December the 11th to find herself alone, had sought out her father, who was still up, and at work in the big drawing-room. He remembered too that the window of that room gave on to a terrace of gra.s.s. A man might go out by that window--aye and return without a soul but himself being the wiser.

Of course it was all guess work and inference, and besides, it must be Mr. Ripley. Mr. Ripley might as easily have discovered the secret of the Memoirs as himself--or anyone else. Mr. Ripley would have justification for anger and indeed for more--yes for what men who are not affected are used to call a crime ... Sir Charles abruptly stopped his reasoning, seeing that it was prompted by a defence of Mr.

Mardale. He made his escape from his hosts as soon as he decently could and retired to his room. He sat down in his room and thought, and he thought to some purpose. He blew out his candle, and stole down the stairs into the hall. He had met no one. From the hall he went to the library-door and opened it--ever so gently. The room was quite dark. Sir Charles felt his way across it to his chair in the corner.

He sat down in the darkness and waited. After a time inconceivably long, after every board in the house had cracked a million times, he heard distinctly a light shuffling step in the pa.s.sage, and after that the latch of the door release itself from the socket. He heard nothing more, for a little, he could only guess that the door was being silently opened by some one who carried no candle. Then the shuffling footsteps began to move gently across the room, towards him, towards the corner where he was sitting. Sir Charles had had no doubt but that they would, not a single doubt, but none the less as he sat there in the dark, he felt the hair rising on his scalp, and all his body thrill. Then a hand groped and touched him. A cry rang out, but it was Sir Charles who uttered it. A voice answered quietly:

”You had fallen asleep. I regret to have waked you.”

”I was not asleep, Mr. Mardale.”

There was a pause and Mr. Mardale continued.

”I cannot sleep to-night, I came for a book.”

”I know. For the book I took back to Leamington to-day, before I went to visit Mrs. Ripley's grave.”

There was a yet longer pause before Mr. Mardale spoke again.

”Stay then!” he said in the same gentle voice. ”I will fetch a light.”

He shuffled out of the room, and to Sir Charles it seemed again an inconceivably long time before he returned. He came back with a single candle, which he placed upon the table, a little star of light, showing the faces of the two men shadowy and dim. He closed the door carefully, and coming back, said simply:

”You know.”

”Yes.”

”How did you find out?”

”I saw the grave. I noticed the remarkable height of the mound. I guessed.”