IT all came back like lightning when the policeman came once more. The family party were almost as before, when the man was announced again, bringing back the former excitement.
No one noticed when Dolff stole out of the room. The lamps had not been brought in, though the afternoon had become dark. The fire glowed, but gave no flame. But it is wrong to say that no one noticed. Janet did not lose a movement of the unhappy young man, nor did Meredith, though he took no notice. Meredith said little: he was struggling with the force of this new discovery that had flashed upon his mind, and which not only cleared up the knotty point, but put meaning and reason into a business hitherto incomprehensible to him.
When the aspect of Dolff suddenly struck upon his dormant memory and roused it into keen life, he no longer found any difficulty in understanding the whole matter. Dolff had seen him with Janet, with whom the lout imagined himself in love. He had heard, perhaps, certain words of the conversation: he had seen the clinging of Janet to Meredith’s arm, the hands held in his. Meredith thought he remembered now a figure with hat drawn down and collar up at the window of Mimpriss’s shop. It was all explicable now; he understood it. Dolff! It flashed upon him without doubt or uncertainty. There was something whimsical, bizarre about it which made him laugh. Dolff, whom he had always despised, a rowdy undergraduate, a music-hall man. Dolff, a troublesome boy, wanting even in the matured strength of a man, not his own match in any way. And to think that he had been carried into the house, and nursed with the profoundest devotion under the same roof with the cub who had tried to take his life.
Nobody had the least idea why Meredith laughed. It was at the detective, he said, though the detective was not ridiculous at all. And this was what had changed the looks of Janet, and given her that tranquil air which, now he thought of it, was so ludicrous too. He had to make an effort to restrain that laugh. After the first thrill of anger, Meredith rejected as impossible the punishment of Dolff. It was not a thing that could be done. Such a scandal and disturbance of all existing ties was inexpedient, even for himself—to have it published to the world that he had been knocked down and almost killed by the son of the house in which he spent most of his evenings, was impossible. At all hazards that danger must be staved off. But Meredith saw means of torturing both those culprits which would be very effectual without any intervention of the law. He would have Dolff at his mercy; he would pierce him with arrows of ridicule from which it would be impossible for the young man to defend himself; and Janet, who had forsaken him, who held apart, and even played for him, when she was bidden to do so, unwillingly—Janet should suffer too.
Lights of malice and mockery woke up in Meredith’s eyes. He anticipated a great deal of fun from the appearance of the witness, who, no doubt, would collapse and come to nothing when inquired into. Meredith saw nothing but sport in this unthought-of catastrophe. He had something of the feeling of the excited boy who has a cat or a dog to torture. He knew how to tickle Dolff up in the tenderest places, to keep him in a perpetual ferment of alarm, to hold endless threats over him; and to watch his writhings would be all the more fun that the fellow would deserve it all, and more than that if he got his due. Thus delightedly pursuing his revenge, Meredith missed the moment when Dolff withdrew. But Janet saw it, with a terror impossible to describe. She could not go after him or advise him. Since these miseries had happened, it had become her charge to make the tea, and there she sat, conspicuous even in the fading light, unable to budge. She saw the unhappy young man steal out, and she knew that all kinds of desperate resolves must be in his mind. He would not have the courage to face it out. He would go away and he would conceal himself—do something to heighten suspicion and make every guess into certainty. And she could not go after him to warn him—to implore him to stand fast! The tortures which Meredith had imagined with such pleasure had begun in Janet’s breast.
Dolff got out into the hall in a condition impossible to describe—his limbs were limp with misery and fear. Great drops of perspiration hung upon his forehead. He went blindly to snatch a hat from the stand; then took his coat, for he was cold with mental agony, and struggled into it. While he was doing this, Vicars suddenly appeared by him, he could not tell how, and laid a hand on his shoulder, which made Dolff jump. He darted back with an oath, and would have that moment turned and fled had not Vicars caught his arm again.
“Mr. Dolff, what’s up? For goodness’ sake don’t fly out like this. There’s one of those d——d policemen watching on the other side of the road.”
Dolff stared wildly in Vicars’s face.
“Let me go,” he said. “I must go; I don’t care where.”
“What’s up?” said Vicars. “You’re in some row, Mr. Dolff?”
“Don’t you know?” said Dolff, wildly. “That man’s coming back. If he comes back before I’m gone, it’s all up with me, Vicars. Get out of my way. I’ll go—by the garden door.”
“And show yourself to all the women,” said Vicars, “who’ll tell the first word, ‘Oh, he’s in the garden.’ Mr. Dolff, is it life or death?”
Dolff could not speak. He stared dully at his questioner, unable to reply. The sound of the outer door pushed open, and men’s footsteps upon the path, came in like a sort of horrible accompaniment and explanation. The perspiration stood in great beads on Dolff’s forehead. He tried to make a bolt at the passage to the garden, which led by the open door of the kitchen. Then he drew himself up against the wall, in a half stupor, as if he could conceal himself so.
“Is it life or death?” said Vicars, in his ear; but Dolff could not speak.
He had a dim vision of the man’s face, of the light swimming in his eyes, of the knock upon the door of the house, ominous, awful, like a knell; and then he suddenly found himself drawn into darkness, into a warm, close atmosphere, beyond the reach of that, or apparently of any other sound.
Priscilla, always correct, but a little surprised, not knowing how to account for such an invasion of the drawing-room, ushered in the detective, accompanied by a man in a shabby coat, very inappropriate certainly to that locality. Mr. Dolff had always spoken to such men in the hall. A parlor-maid is, above all things, an aristocrat. To have to introduce two such persons to her mistress’s presence offended her in her deepest sense of right and wrong.
“Is this the man?” said Meredith. “Mrs. Harwood, do you think we might have a little light?”
“Priscilla is bringing in the lamps,” said Mrs. Harwood, looking with a little suspicion and annoyance at the men, who certainly were much out of place: a feeling that there was danger in them somehow, though she could not tell how, crept into her mind.
She looked anxiously at the dim figures looming against the light, and a thrill of alarm went through her. Why did Charley insist on having them here? Why did not Dolff see them in the hall, as he had done before? She had never had a policeman in her house; never, except—Trouble and tremor came over her as she sat there growing breathless in her chair. As for Gussy, she was insensible to every appeal, to every claim upon her attention but one. She was Meredith’s sick-nurse, watching lest he should be over-fatigued, thinking of nothing else. There was no help or support in her for her mother’s anxieties.
When the lamps were brought in matters were no better. A sort of Rembrandt-like depth of shadow fell upon the two strange figures, throwing a blackness over the tea-table at which Janet was sitting, and showing only the form of Meredith in his chair, which was full within the influence of the shaded light, and the awkward attitudes of the two men in the middle of the room.
“So this is the man who saw me—knocked down?” said Meredith. His face, which was the central light in that strange picture, was lit up with what seemed more like malicious fun than any other sentiment. “And you think you could identify the fellow who did it? Is that so?”
“You may thank your stars as you weren’t killed,” said the new-comer. “He meant it, sir, that fellow did.”
“You think so? Well, he hasn’t succeeded, you see; and you think you can identify him?”
“Among a thousand, sir,” said the man. “Just you put him before me in a crowd and I’ll pick him out afore you could say——”
“Then why,” said Meredith, “haven’t you done it before now? Here are three weeks gone, and plenty of time for him to have got away.”
“He’s not got away; I’ve kept my eye upon him, and I have said to the police, times and times, as I could lay my hands upon him as soon as ever he was wanted.”
“I thought,” said Meredith, “a criminal was wanted from the moment he put himself in the power of the law. You should have secured him at once; to keep your eye upon a man is not a process known to the law.”
“I don’t know about the law, sir,” said the man. “I know that I have been ready any day. I told ’em so the very first night, but they’ve never paid no attention to me—not till this gentleman was put on as knows me, and knows as he can trust in my word.”
“Yes?” said Meredith, solemnly, “I’m glad to hear you can have such good recommendations. Is it necessary you should have a thousand to choose from before you tell us who my assailant is?—because, you see, it would be a little difficult to have them in here.”
“Oh,” cried the man, angrily, “a deal fewer than a thousand will do—if you’ll just collect all there is in the house——”
“In the house!” cried Mrs. Harwood, “but what is the use of that? We know beforehand that there is nobody in this house who would lay a finger——” she stopped with an indefinite choking sensation in her throat, suddenly perceiving that Dolff had gone away. It was not distinct enough to mean suspicion of Dolff—suspicion of Dolff! what folly and insanity! but why should he have gone away?
“I thought as you said the young gentleman was here,” said the witness, turning to his guide. “I told you as you’d never find him when you came back.”
“It don’t matter much,” said the other, in a low tone, “he can’t go far, there’s two of my mates outside.”
The ladies did not catch the meaning of this colloquy, though it raised the most bewildering alarm in Mrs. Harwood’s breast. Gussy still thought of it alone as it affected the health of her beloved. She stood by him, her attention concentrated on him, watching whether he grew pale, whether he flushed, if he seemed tired. Her mother’s anxious look awakened no sympathy in Gussy’s mind. If she observed it at all she set it down to the same cause as made herself anxious, the fear that Meredith might be over-excited or fatigued.
“Do you want the maids and all?” said Meredith, in his familiar tone of banter. “You don’t think much of me, my good man, if you think I could be battered like that by—Priscilla, for instance,” he said, turning to Mrs. Harwood with a laugh.
“I wasn’t thinking of no Priscilla,” said the man, angrily. “If it suits you to laugh at it, gentleman, it don’t suit me. There’s a reward out. And when I see as clear as I sees you—I should think it was a man, and a strong one too. Lord, how savage he took you up again and dashed your ’ead against the pavement! I should know him anywhere, among a thousand.”
“Charley,” said Mrs. Harwood, faintly, “there is something dreadful in all this. Do you think it could be put off to another time? or couldn’t they just go and do their duty, whatever it is, without freezing the blood in our veins, and,” she added, catching Gussy’s look, “exhausting you?”
“I’m sorry to trouble the lady, sir,” said the detective. “I shouldn’t have said anything if I could have helped it; but, to tell you the truth, suspicion does attach to a person in the house. If the young gentleman had stayed and faced it, things might have been done quiet. But as he’s gone away—I’m sorry, very sorry, to disturb the ladies—but I’ve got a search-warrant, and I must find my man. You’ll explain it to ’em, sir, as I can’t help it, and it was no wish of mine to upset the house.”
“A search-warrant! Oh, my God! what does he mean?” cried Mrs. Harwood. She added, in her bewilderment, “That could have nothing to do with Charley,” under her breath.
“I have no more idea than you have,” said Meredith; “some one in this house? It must be old Vicars they mean. Come, my man, don’t be too absurd. If you think that old fellow could play at pitch-and-toss with me in the way you describe, you must have a precious poor opinion of me. But I suppose Vicars can be sent for—if he’s in the house.”
“I don’t know nothing about Vicars, nor who he is. Where’s that young gentleman? What did he go away for when he knew as he was wanted? You produce that young gentleman, and then you’ll see what we means,” said the witness, in great wrath.
“Hold your noise,” said the policeman. “I daresay it’s all nonsense when we come to the bottom of it; and I’m sure I’m very sorry to disturb the ladies; but I must just ’ave a few words with the young gentleman. Most likely he can clear it all up.”
“Dolff!” said Mrs. Harwood, with an amazed cry.
“Dolff!” cried Meredith, with a burst of laughter.
His apparent appreciation of this as an excellent joke confused the two men. They looked at each other again for mutual support.
“You’d not have laughed if you’d seen him, as I did,” growled the stranger.
“I felt—him, whoever he was, as you didn’t, my man; and it is evident you think me a poor creature, to be battered about by a boy—or a woman. Come, there’s enough of this nonsense,” he said. “Why didn’t you seize the fellow when you saw him? What do you mean, coming with this cock-and-bull story three weeks after—and to me?”
“Produce the young gentleman, sir, and let me just ask him a few questions.”
“I haven’t got him in my pocket,” said Meredith. “Probably he has gone out. If he were here, I should not allow him to answer your questions. I’m his legal adviser. Come, come, don’t let us have any more of this.”
“If he has gone out,” said the policeman, “by this time he’s in the hands of my mate—and if he haven’t I’ve a right to search the house. You’d better produce him, mister—or you, lady, before it’s too late.”
Janet, unable to bear the scene which was thus rising to a climax, had got up out of the shadow and left the room a moment before. The hall was perfectly vacant, not a trace of any one in it—not even Priscilla going about her business, or the nurse in the dining-room, which was still sacred to the invalid. The lamp burned steadily, the silence was dreadful to the excited girl. It seemed like the pause of fate—not a sound within or without—even the voices, subdued by distance, but generally audible in a cheerful hum from the kitchen, were hushed to-night. All perfectly silent—calm as if tumult or tragedy had never entered there.