Part 16 (2/2)
”I sha'n't say anything,” I a.s.sured him.
”Well, I was called out about eleven last night, just as I was going up to bed, by an old labourer who drove into Sibberton in a light cart, and who told me that a woman was lying seriously ill at a farmhouse which he described as beyond Cherry Lap. It was out of my district, but he told me that he had been into Thrapston, but one doctor was out at a case and the other was away, therefore he had driven over to me. From what he said the case seemed serious, therefore I mounted my horse and rode along at his side in the moonlight. The night was lovely. We went by Geddington Chase, through Brigstock, and out on the Oundle Road, a good eleven miles in all, when he turned up a narrow drift for nearly half-a-mile where stood a small lonely farmhouse on the edge of a spinney. The place was in darkness, but as soon as I had dismounted the door opened, and there appeared a big powerful-looking man, holding a candle in his hand, and behind him was the figure of an old woman, who made a remark to him in a low voice. Then I heard a man somewhere speaking in some foreign language.”
”A foreign language?” I remarked, quickly interested.
”Yes. That's what first aroused my suspicion,” he said. ”I was taken upstairs, and in a rather poorly-furnished room found a person in bed.
The light had been purposely placed so that I could not see the features distinctly, and so dark was the corner where the patient lay that at first I could distinguish nothing.
”My daughter here has--well, she's met with a slight accident,” the sinister-looking fellow explained, standing behind me, and then as he s.h.i.+fted the paraffin lamp a little there was revealed a young woman, dark-haired and rather good-looking, lying pale and insensible. Upon the pillow was a quant.i.ty of blood, which had, I saw, flowed from an ugly gaping wound on the left side of the neck--distinctly a knife-wound.
”`Accident!' I exclaimed, looking at the man. `Why, she couldn't have inflicted such a wound as that herself. Who did it?' `Never mind, doctor, who did it,' the fellow growled surlily. `You sew it up or something. This ain't the time for chin--the girl may die.' He was a rough customer, and I did not at all like the look of him. I was, indeed, sorry that I had entered there, for both he and the woman also in the room were a very mysterious pair. Therefore I got the latter to bring some warm water, and after a little time succeeded in sewing the wound and properly bandaging it. Just as I had finished, the young woman gradually recovered consciousness. `Where am I?' she inquired in a faint, rather refined voice. `Hold your jaw!' roughly replied the fellow. `If you don't it'll be the worse for you!' `But, where's George?' she demanded. `Oh, don't bother about him,' was the gruff injunction. `Ah!' she shrieked suddenly, raising herself in her bed and glaring at him wildly. `I know the truth! I remember now! You caught him by the throat and you strangled him?--you coward! You believe that d.i.c.k Keene doesn't know about the Sibberton affair, but he does.
They've seen him, and told him everything--how--' The man turned to her with his fist raised menacingly saying, `Lie quiet! you silly fool! If you don't, you'll be sorry for it! No more gab now!' Then turning to me he said with a short harsh laugh, `The girl's a bit off her head, doctor. Come, let's go downstairs!' And he hurried me out lest she should make any more allegations.
”My first inclination was to remain and question her, yet it seemed clear that I was among a very queer lot, and that discretion was the best course. Therefore I followed the man down, although my patient shrieked aloud for me to return.”
”By Jove!” I exclaimed, aroused to activity by mention of the man Keene. ”That was a strange adventure--very strange!”
”Yes,” he continued. ”The fellow evinced the greatest anxiety that I should leave, pressed into my hand half-a-sovereign as a fee, and again a.s.sured me that the girl's mind was wandering. Again and again she called after me `Doctor! doctor!' but in a room beyond I again heard men's voices, speaking low in a foreign language, therefore I hesitated, and presently mounted my mare and rode away. Now,” he added, taking another long pinch of snuff, ”what do you make out of it, Woodhouse?”
”Seems very much as though there's been another tragedy,” I remarked.
”I wonder who the injured girl is?” I added, utterly amazed at his narrative.
”I wonder,” he added, ”and who is this man Keene who knows all about the Sibberton affair? Could she have been referring to the tragedy in the park, do you think?”
”Yes, undoubtedly,” I said quickly. ”We must return there, get to see her in secret, and hear her story.”
”The worst of it is that as I was there at night, just at a time when the moon was hidden behind the clouds, I doubt whether I'll be able to recognise the place again.”
”Let's try,” I suggested eagerly, springing up. ”Don't let us lose an instant. I have a suspicion that we're on the track of the truth.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE STORY OF MR THOMAS HAYES.
By half-past four we had covered the eleven miles that lay between the old-world village of Sibberton and that point beyond Brigstock on the Oundle road which skirts that dense wood called Cherry Lap.
Both of us were well-mounted, the doctor on his bay hunter, while I rode my own cob, and our pace had all along been a pretty hard one. Being both followers of hounds we knew all the bridle-roads across Geddington Chase, and over the rich pastures between them and the road at Cat's Head. Beyond Brigstock, however, we never hunted, for at that point our country joined that of the Fitzwilliam Hunt. Therefore, beyond Cherry Lap the neighbourhood was unfamiliar to both of us.
We hacked along on the gra.s.s by the side of the broad highway for a couple of miles or so, but the doctor failed to recognise the field by which he had turned off on the previous night. By-roads are deceptive in the moonlight.
”The gate was open when I pa.s.sed through,” he remarked. ”And if it's closed now it'll be difficult to find it again. The country is so level here, and all the fields are so much alike. I recollect at the time looking around for some landmark and finding nothing until I got to the top end of the field, over the brow of the hill.”
”We'll go on slowly,” I said. ”You'll recognise it presently.”
We pa.s.sed half a dozen fields with rough cart-roads running through each of them. Indeed, after harvest each field generally bears marks of carts in its gateway. In the darkness my companion had not been able to see what had been grown, except that the crop had been cut and carried.
For another couple of miles we rode forward, the doctor examining every field but failing to recognise the gateway into which he had turned, until at length we came to the junction of the road from Weldon, when he pulled up, saying--
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