Part 6 (2/2)

I held the bag still in my hand. She opened the case, and between us we threw a hundred or so of the medals into it. They were all from the one case, but I could not bring myself to wait for any more. Then I made for the window, for the very air of this house seemed to poison me after what I had seen and heard. As I looked back, I saw her standing there, tall and graceful, with the light in her hand just as I had seen her first. She waved good-bye, and I waved back at her and sprang out into the gravel drive.

I thank G.o.d that I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that I have never done a murder, but perhaps it would be different if I had been able to read that woman's mind and thoughts. There might have been two bodies in the room instead of one if I could have seen behind that last smile of hers. But I thought of nothing but of getting safely away, and it never entered my head how she might be fixing the rope round my neck.

I had not taken five steps out from the window skirting down the shadow of the house in the way that I had come, when I heard a scream that might have raised the parish, and then another and another.

”Murder!” she cried. ”Murder! Murder! Help!” and her voice rang out in the quiet of the night-time and sounded over the whole country-side. It went through my head, that dreadful cry. In an instant lights began to move and windows to fly up, not only in the house behind me, but at the lodge and in the stables in front. Like a frightened rabbit I bolted down the drive, but I heard the clang of the gate being shut before I could reach it. Then I hid my bag of medals under some dry f.a.gots, and I tried to get away across the park, but some one saw me in the moonlight, and presently I had half a dozen of them with dogs upon my heels. I crouched down among the brambles, but those dogs were too many for me, and I was glad enough when the men came up and prevented me from being torn into pieces. They seized me, and dragged me back to the room from which I had come.

”Is this the man, your Ladys.h.i.+p?” asked the oldest of them--the same whom I found out afterwards to be the butler.

She had been bending over the body, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and now she turned upon me with the face of a fury. Oh, what an actress that woman was!

”Yes, yes, it is the very man,” she cried. ”Oh, you villain, you cruel villain, to treat an old man so!”

There was a man there who seemed to be a village constable. He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

”What do you say to that?” said he.

”It was she who did it,” I cried, pointing at the woman, whose eyes never flinched before mine.

”Come! come! Try another!” said the constable, and one of the men-servants struck at me with his fist.

”I tell you that I saw her do it. She stabbed him twice with a knife.

She first helped me to rob him, and then she murdered him.”

The footman tried to strike me again, but she held up her hand.

”Do not hurt him,” said she. ”I think that his punishment may safely be left to the law.”

”I'll see to that, your Ladys.h.i.+p,” said the constable. ”Your Ladys.h.i.+p actually saw the crime committed, did you not?”

”Yes, yes, I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible. We heard the noise and we came down. My poor husband was in front. The man had one of the cases open, and was filling a black leather bag which he held in his hand. He rushed past us, and my husband seized him. There was a struggle, and he stabbed him twice. There you can see the blood upon his hands. If I am not mistaken, his knife is still in Lord Mannering's body.”

”Look at the blood upon her hands!” I cried.

”She has been holding up his Lords.h.i.+p's head, you lying rascal,” said the butler.

”And here's the very sack her Ladys.h.i.+p spoke of,” said the constable, as a groom came in with the one which I had dropped in my flight. ”And here are the medals inside it. That's good enough for me. We will keep him safe here to-night, and to-morrow the inspector and I can take him into Salisbury.”

”Poor creature,” said the woman. ”For my own part, I forgive him any injury which he has done me. Who knows what temptation may have driven him to crime? His conscience and the law will give him punishment enough without any reproach of mine rendering it more bitter.”

I could not answer--I tell you, sir, I could not answer, so taken aback was I by the a.s.surance of the woman. And so, seeming by my silence to agree to all that she had said, I was dragged away by the butler and the constable into the cellar, in which they locked me for the night.

There, sir, I have told you the whole story of the events which led up to the murder of Lord Mannering by his wife upon the night of September the 14th, in the year 1894. Perhaps you will put my statement on one side as the constable did at Mannering Towers, or the judge afterwards at the county a.s.sizes. Or perhaps you will see that there is the ring of truth in what I say, and you will follow it up, and so make your name for ever as a man who does not grudge personal trouble where justice is to be done. I have only you to look to, sir, and if you will clear my name of this false accusation, then I will wors.h.i.+p you as one man never yet wors.h.i.+pped another. But if you fail me, then I give you my solemn promise that I will rope myself up, this day month, to the bar of my window, and from that time on I will come to plague you in your dreams if ever yet one man was able to come back and to haunt another. What I ask you to do is very simple. Make inquiries about this woman, watch her, learn her past history, find out what she is making of the money which has come to her, and whether there is not a man Edward as I have stated. If from all this you learn anything which shows you her real character, or which seems to you to corroborate the story which I have told you, then I am sure that I can rely upon your goodness of heart to come to the rescue of an innocent man.

IV

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