“I MUST go after them; I must—I must follow them! Oh, Dolff, where are you—where are you?” cried Mrs. Harwood.
She was wild with excitement and alarm, her face alternately flushed and paled, her form trembling with endeavor to move, to push herself forward, to follow those dreadful emissaries of the law whose heavy steps were very audible, now on the stairs, now overhead.
The other members of the party were in strange contrast to her anxiety. Meredith lay back in his chair rubbing his hands moved apparently by the supremest sense of the ludicrous, unable to see it in any but a ridiculous light. Gussy leaned on the back of his chair, smiling in sympathy with him, yet a little pale and wondering, beginning to realize that something disagreeable, painful, might be going on, though it did not mean fatigue or excitement to her patient. Julia, finally roused from her book, had got up bewildered, and stood asking what was the matter, getting no reply from anyone.
The door of the drawing-room had been left open, and across the hall, at the opposite door of what was now Meredith’s room, stood the nurse in her white cap and apron, with a wondering face, looking out.
“I thought I knew a great deal about the folly of the authorities,” said Meredith, “and of Scotland Yard in particular, but this is the climax. By-the-bye, I see an opportunity for a great sensation, which, if I were at the Old Bailey, would make my fortune. ‘The prisoner, accused of a murderous assault upon Mr. Meredith, was defended by that gentleman in person.’ What a situation for the press—one might add, ‘who is a family connection,’ eh, Gussy?” he said, putting up his hand to take hers, which was upon the back of his chair.
“Oh, Charley! but speak to mamma. Mamma is miserable. Everything about Dolff makes her so anxious.”
“Even such an excellent joke?” said Meredith: but he did not say anything to comfort Mrs. Harwood.
In the midst of his laugh a sudden gravity came over him. He looked at her again with a quick, scrutinizing glance. Dolff was not all. She had been bewildered—taken by surprise, but was not really anxious about her son. Now, however, as she sat listening, waiting, her suspense became unbearable. A woman imprisoned in her chair never moving, unable to walk a step, she looked as if at any moment she might dart out of it and fling herself after the invaders. Her hands moved uneasily upon the arms of her chair, plucking at them as if to raise herself. The light in her eyes was a wild glare of desperation. The color fluttered on her face, now ebbing away and leaving her ghastly, now coming back with a sudden flush. He remembered suddenly all that might be involved in a search of that house, and that for anything he knew a secret which it was of the utmost importance he should fathom now lay, as it were, within reach of his hand. He became serious all at once, the laugh passing suddenly from his face. He got up but not to stop the examination, as Gussy hoped. He did not even stop to soothe Mrs. Harwood, but strolled out into the hall on his unsteady limbs, forgetting them all.
“I must go after them,” Mrs. Harwood cried again, half raising herself in her chair. “I must go after them. Gussy, they may go—how can we tell where they may go?”
“No, mamma, there is nothing to be alarmed about. Vicars will see to that.”
“How can we tell where Vicars is? I have been afraid of something of the kind all my life. Gussy, I must go myself. I must go myself!”
“Oh, hush, mamma,” said Gussy; she was not alarmed about a risk which had never frightened her at all. Mrs. Harwood was always nervous; but Gussy, who had been used to it for years, had never believed that anything would happen. So long as Charley did not throw himself back—was not over-excited. This was what Gussy most feared.
“I’ll take you wherever you like, mamma,” said Julia, coming with a rush to the back of the chair, and projecting her mother into the hall with a force which nearly shook her out of it. Mrs. Harwood’s precipitate progress was arrested by Meredith, who called out to Julia to go softly, and caught at the arm of the chair as it swung past.
“Are you coming too, to keep an eye on them?” he said.
“I don’t like,” said Mrs. Harwood, trying to subdue the trembling of her lips, “to have such people all over my house.”
“Oh, they are honest enough; there will be no picking or stealing. As for the thing itself, it’s a farce. I daresay Dolff has gone out. And, if not, what does it matter? If there is any such ridiculous idea about, you had better meet it and be done with it. It’s a wonder they don’t arrest me for knocking down myself.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Harwood faintly, “I am not afraid for Dolff.”
“You can have nothing else to be afraid of,” said Meredith, in his careless tones. “A search by the police is nothing unless there happens to be something for them to find out. Nothing is of any importance unless it is true. They may search till they are tired, but, so long as there is nobody in hiding, what can it matter? Don’t trouble yourself about nothing. Let me take you back to your comfortable fireside.”
“No, no,” said Mrs. Harwood, more and more troubled; “I will stay here.”
He had not, it was evident, found the way to save her, with all his philosophy.
“No?” said Meredith, interrogatively. “It’s rather cold here, however, after the cosiness of the drawing-room. I hope you’ll not catch cold. If it is any satisfaction to you, of course, there’s nothing to be said: but I should think you might let me look out for these fellows and send them off. Julia and me,” he added, with a wave of his hand to Julia, and the smile which was so exasperating.
He kept wondering all the time where Janet was—Janet, who had disappeared without attracting any notice, and who probably, he thought, had helped to smuggle Dolff away somewhere, uselessly—because when such an accusation was once made, it was much better to brave it out. It was like the folly of a woman to try to smuggle him away, when the only thing was to brave it out.
“This is the only place where there is no draught,” he said, pushing Mrs. Harwood’s chair directly in front of the door which led to the wing—the door, which, on the night of the ball, he and Janet had miraculously found unfastened.
The door, he remarked once more, had every appearance of being a door built up and impracticable. To say, in a carefully-kept house like this, that it was covered with dust would not have been true, but there was an air about it as if it had been covered with dust. Meredith smiled at himself while he made this reflection. His heart was singularly buoyant and free, full of excitement, yet of pleasurable excitement. He was on the eve of finding out something he wanted to find out, and he was most particularly concerned that the circumstances which favored him should overwhelm Mrs. Harwood. He placed her almost exactly in front of the door as if she had intended to veil it, and drew over one of the hall chairs beside her and threw himself down upon it.
“This is the most sheltered spot,” he said, “out of reach of the door and several other draughts. If you will stay out in the hall and catch cold, Mrs. Harwood, you are safest here.”
She glanced at the door as he drew her up to it with a repressed shudder. She had become deadly pale, and in the faint light looked as if she had suddenly become a hundred years old, withered and shrunken up with age. Julia, very much startled, and with eyes wide open and astonished, stood by her mother.
“I shouldn’t have put her by that nasty shut-up door; there is always a wind from under it,” she said.
“Hush—oh, hush!” said Mrs. Harwood, with a shiver.
The detective and his companion were coming downstairs, led by the sniffing and contemptuous Priscilla. They came down cautiously with their heavy boots, as if they might have slipped on the soft carpets.
“Well,” said Meredith, as they came in sight, “found anything? We are waiting here to hear your news.”
“No, sir; the young gentleman have got clean away, so far as I can see,” said the policeman; “but you know, sir, as well as me, for a man that’s known to struggle with the p’leece is no good. He’ll be got at, sooner or later, and it’s far better to give himself up at once.”
“That is exactly my opinion,” said Meredith, “and I should have given him that advice if either of us had known what you meant; but, you see, a young gentleman who has nothing on his conscience does not think what is the wisest thing to do about the police—for he does not expect to have anything to do with them.”
“I hope he have as easy a conscience as that,” said the detective.
“I hope he has, and I don’t doubt it, either. Well—what are you going to do now? You’ve looked through all this part of the house, I suppose?”
“We began with the upper rooms first.”
“That was scarcely wise of you,” said Meredith, “he might have popped out of one of those rooms and run for it, while you were busy upstairs.”
“Scarcely that, sir,” said the policeman, with a grin—and he opened the door, revealing suddenly a colleague erect and burly in his blue uniform upon the step outside.
This sight made even Meredith silent for a moment. It made the peril and the watch real, and brought before him all the difficulties to be encountered if Dolff (which seemed incredible) should actually be taken, committed to prison, and tried for a murderous attack upon his own life. It was so appalling, and he knew so little how to meet it if it really became an actual situation to be reckoned with, that for a moment he was stunned; then he thought it best to burst into a laugh. The effect on Mrs. Harwood was naturally still more serious. The poor lady began to cry:
“Is it my boy, my Dolff, that they are hunting down like that? Oh! Charley, you are the only one that can tell them how—how ridiculous it is—tell them it’s not true.”
“I’m very sorry, ma’am, to disturb you,” said the policeman, “but will you just move your chair from that door? I beg your pardon, I didn’t know the lady couldn’t move—let me do it—thank you, miss—away from that door.”
“That’s not a door,” said Julia, promptly, “it’s been shut up since ever I remember; that other is the dining-room where Charley Meredith lives, and that is the library that is standing open. And this is the passage that leads to the kitchen and the pantry. And there’s the drawing-room on the other side, And this is a cupboard, and this——”
“Beg your pardon, miss, we’ll find them all out as we comes to them,” the man said. “It’s hard work, and it’s harder still when we haves to do it in the face of a lot of ladies as is innocent of everything, and don’t even know what we means when we speak. Won’t you say to the lady, sir, as she’ll be far better in her own room, and to let us do what is our painful dooty?”
“It is unnecessary for you to say anything, Charley,” said Mrs. Harwood; “if my house is to be treated like a thieves’ den, at least I shall stay here.”
“If it upsets you, lady, don’t blame us,” said the policeman, respectfully enough.
They went through all the rooms while she sat watching, Meredith lounging beside her in a chair, occasionally getting up to take a turn about the hall. If the policeman had been a man of any penetration, he would have seen that his investigations in these rooms were of no interest to the watchers, but that their excitement grew fierce every time he emerged into the hall.
Meredith felt the fire in his veins burn stronger as they came back and forward. It was with difficulty he could restrain his agitation. Mrs. Harwood’s chair had been pushed aside, leaving the access open to that mysterious door. She sat with her head turned away a little, her hands clasped together, an image of suspense and painful anxiety, listening for the men’s steps as they drew nearer. Gussy had followed the rest of the party, though it was against all her principles to yield to this excitement and make a show, as she said, of her feelings. She was vexed especially to see her mother “give way.”
“Let me put you back into the drawing-room, mamma. What is the use of staying here? Dolff has gone out, evidently. It is very silly of him, but still he has done so. It will do him no good for you to catch cold here. Charley, do tell her to come in. As for you, you will throw yourself back a week at least. Oh, for goodness’ sake, do not make everything worse by staying here!”
Mrs. Harwood made no reply. She shook her head with speechless impatience, and turned her face away. She was beyond all considerations but one, and she could not bear any interruptions, a voice, a sound, which kept her strained ears from the knowledge of the men’s movements, and where they were. Gussy’s whisper continued to Meredith was torture to her. She raised her hand with an imperative gesture to have silence, silence! her heart beating in her ears like a sledgehammer rising and falling was surely enough, without having any whispering and foolish, vain, ineffectual words.
“There’s nothing now but this door,” said the policeman, coming out somewhat crestfallen. “He’s nowhere else, that’s clear. If he ain’t here he’s given us the slip—for the moment. Hallo! it’s locked, this one is! I’ll thank you, sir, to get me the key.”
“I have always understood,” said Meredith, blandly, “that the door was built up, or fastened up. It has never been used since I have known the house.”
“I told you so,” said Julia, “if you had listened to me. It isn’t a door at all, and leads to nowhere. It was once the door of the wing,” she continued, with the liking of a child for giving information, “but it has never once been opened since ever I was born.”
“The wing! that’s them empty rooms as we see from the garden—the very place for a man to hide. Tell you what, sir, I can’t bear to upset the lady—but we must break in if we can’t get in quietly. You might try if you couldn’t get us the key, and take the ladies away—anyhow, get the old lady to go away—whatever happens, she’d better not be here.”
Mrs. Harwood spoke quickly, in a hoarse and broken voice.
“There is no key,” she said.
“I give you five minutes to think of it, lady,” said the man; “otherwise we must break in the door.”
There was a dreadful silence—a silence which no one dared to break.
“I am telling you the truth; you cannot open it, it has always been shut up. There is no key.”