Career Of Evil

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Career Of Evil

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 Career Of Evil

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.
Disappointment deepened on Harry's face, and a gleam of anger
shone there.
"I will not ask you a third time," he said, and went into the dining
room.
Geoffrey had still three hours to wait in London before the starting of
his train, and these were chequered with an incredible crowd of
various hopes and fears. At one time he hugged himself on the
obvious superiority of their dispositions against Mr. Francis; he would
even smile to think of the toils enveloping that evil schemer; again
mere exhilaration at the unknown and the violent would boil up in
effervescence; another moment, and an anguish of distrust would
seize him. What if, after all, Dr. Armytage had been playing with him,
how completely and successfully, he writhed to think? A week ago
the sweat would have broken out on him to picture Harry travelling
down to Vail with that man of sinister repute, to be alone in the
house with him, Mr. Francis, and the foxlike servant. Had he been
hoodwinked throughout? Was the doctor even now smiling to
himself behind his paper at the facility of his victim? At the thought,
London turned hell; he had taken the bait like a silly staring fish;
even now he was already hauled, as it were, on to dry land, there to
gasp innocuously, impotent to stir or warn, while who knew what
ghastly subaqueous drama might even now be going on? He had
trusted the doctor on evidence of the most diaphanous kind,
unsupported by any testimony of another. The sleeping-draught
given to Harry, the brushing aside of the revolver he had passed to
him, when to shoot was impossible—these, with a calculated gravity
of face and an assumption of anxious sincerity, had been enough to
convince him of the man's honesty. He could have screamed aloud
at the thought, and every moment whirled Harry nearer, helpless
and unsuspecting, to that house of death!
Meantime the journey of the two had been for the most part a silent
passage. Each was absorbed in his own thoughts and anxieties:
Harry, restless, impatient, eager for the quicker falling behind of
wayside stations, while the doctor brooded with half-closed eyelids,
intent, it would seem, on the pattern of the carriage mat, his
thoughts inconjecturable. Once only, as the train yelled through
Slough, did he speak, but then with earnestness.
"Don't let your uncle know I have come, Harry," he said. "It may be
that Sanders has unnecessarily alarmed you. So see him first
yourself, and if this has been a heart attack like to what he had
before, and he seems now to be quietly recuperating, do not let him
know I am here. It may only alarm him for his condition."
"Pray God it may be so!" said Harry.
The doctor looked steadfastly at the carriage mat.
"Medically speaking," he said, "I insist on this. I should also wish
that you would guard against all possibility of his knowing I am here.
Sanders, I suppose, looks after him. I should therefore not wish
Sanders to know."
"Oh, he can keep a secret," said Harry.
"Very likely; but I would rather he had no secret to keep. I am not
speaking without reason. If, as you fear, and as the telegram seems
to indicate, this attack has been unusually severe, I must assure you
that it is essential that no agitating influence of any kind should
come near him. If he is in real danger, of course I will see him."
"Would it not be likely to reassure him to know you are here?" asked
Harry.
"I have told you that I think not," said the doctor, "unless there is
absolute need of me. I hope"—and the word did not stick in his
throat "that quiet will again restore him."
A trap was waiting for them at the station, driven by Jim, and the
doctor had an opportunity of judging how far the likeness between
the two might be hoped to deceive one who knew them both. Even
now, with the one in livery, the other in ordinary dress, it was
extraordinary, not only in superficialities, but somehow essentially,
and he felt that it was worth while to have arranged to profit by it,
should opportunity occur. The groom had a note for Harry, which he
tore open hastily.
"Ah! that is good," he said, and handed it to the doctor.
It was but a matter of a couple of lines, signed by Templeton, saying
merely that the severity of the attack was past, and at the time of
writing Mr. Francis was sleeping, being looked after by Sanders, who
had not left him since the seizure. And to the one reader this
account brought an up-springing of hope, to the other the conviction
that his estimate of Mr. Francis's illness was correct.
Harry went upstairs immediately on his arrival, leaving the doctor in
the hall. Templeton, usually a man of wood, had perceptibly started
when he opened the door to them and saw the doctor, and now,
instead of discreetly retiring on the removal of their luggage, he
hung about, aimlessly poking the fire, putting a crooked chair
straight, and a straight chair crooked, and fidgeting with the blinds.
All at once the strangeness of his manner struck the doctor.
"What have you got to tell me?" he asked suddenly.
The blind crashed down to its full length as the butler's hand
dropped the retaining string. The rigid control of domestic service
was snapped; he was a frightened man speaking to his equal.
"This is a strange illness of Mr. Francis's," he said.
The doctor was alive to seize every chance.
"How strange?" he asked. "Mr. Francis has had these attacks
before."
"I sent for the doctor from Didcot, as soon as it occurred, unknown
to him or Sanders," said Templeton, "but he was not allowed to see
him. Why is that, sir? There was Sanders telegraphing for his
lordship, and saying that Mr. Francis was dying, yet refusing to let
the doctor see him. But perhaps he was expecting you, sir."
"He does not know I am here, Templeton, nor must he know. Look
to that; see that the servants do not tell Sanders I am here. Now,
what do you mean? You think Mr. Francis is not ill at all."
"Does a man in the jaws of death, I may say, play the flute?" asked
the butler.
"Play the flute?"
"Yes, sir. It was during the servants' dinner hour—but I had no
stomach for my meat to-day, and went upstairs—when we might
have been at dinner perhaps five minutes, and along the top
passage to his lordship's room to see if they had it ready. Well, sir, I
heard coming from Mr. Francis's room—very low and guarded, so
that I should have heard nothing had I not stood outside a moment
listening, you may say, but I did not know for what—a little lively
tune I have heard him play a score of times. But in a minute it
ceased, and then I heard two voices talking, and after that Mr.
Francis laughed. That from a man who was sleeping, so Sanders told
us."
"This is all very strange," said the doctor.
"Ay, and then the door opened, and out came that man Sanders;
black as hell he looked when he saw me! But little I cared for his
black looks, and I just asked him how his master was. Very bad, he
told me, and wandering, and he wondered whether his lordship
would get here in time."
The doctor came a step nearer.
"Templeton," he said, "I rely on you to obey me implicitly. It is
necessary that neither Mr. Francis nor Sanders know I am here.
Things which I can not yet tell you may depend on this. And see to
this: let me have the room I had before, and put his lordship into the
room opening from it. Lock the door of it which leads into the
passage, and lose the key, so that the only entrance is through my
room. If he asks why his room is changed, make any paltry excuse:
say the electric light in his room is gone wrong—anything. But make
his usual room look as if it was occupied; go up there during dinner,
turn down the bed, put a nightshirt on it, and leave a sponge,
brushes, and so on."
"Master Harry!" gasped the butler, his mind suddenly reverting to old
days.
The doctor frowned.
"Come," he said, "do not get out of hand like that. Do as I bid you,
and try to look yourself. I can tell you no more."
Harry came down from the sick room a few minutes later, with a
brow markedly clearer.
"He is much better, ever so much better, Sanders thinks," he said.
"He was sleeping, but when he wakes he will be told I have come."
"Ah! that is good," said the doctor. "Did Sanders tell you about the
attack?"
"Yes, it came on while he was dressing this morning. Luckily,
Sanders was with him; but for an hour, he tells me, he thought that
every breath might be his last. He's a trump, that man, and there's a
head on his shoulders too. He has hardly left him for five minutes."
"Will Sanders sleep in his room to-night?" asked the doctor.
"Yes, he has his meals brought to him there too, so that it will be
easy for you not to be seen by him, since you make such a point of
it. Oh, thank God, he is so much better! Ah, look! we are going to
have one of those curious low mists to-night."
The doctor followed Harry to one of the windows which Templeton
had left unshuttered, and looked out.
The autumn twilight was fast closing in, and after the hot sun of the
day, the mist, in the sudden coolness of its withdrawal, was forming
very thickly and rapidly over the lake. There was a little draught of
wind toward the house, not sufficient to disperse it, but only to slide
it gently, like a sheet, over the lawns. It lay very low, in thickness
not perhaps exceeding five feet over the higher stretches of the
lawn, but as the surface of it was level, it must have been some few
feet thicker where the ground declined toward the lake. It appeared
to be of extraordinary density, and spread very swiftly and steadily,
so that even while they watched, it had pushed on till, like flood
water, it struck the wall of the house, and presently lawn and lake
were both entirely vanished, and they looked out, as from a
mountain-top, over a level sea of cloud, pricked here and there by
plantations and the higher shrubs. Above, the night was clear, and a
young moon rode high in a heaven that silently filled with stars.
Geoffrey, meantime, had followed two hours behind them; his train
was punctual, and it was only a little after seven when he found
himself, having walked from the station, at the edge of the woods,
looking down on to this same curious sea of mist. The monstrous
birds of the box hedge stood out upon it, like great aquatic creatures
swimming there, for the hedge itself was submerged, and the
descent into it was like a plunge into a bath. Not wishing to risk
being seen from the house, he made a wide circuit round it toward
the lake. Here the mist rose above his head, baffling and blinding;
but striking the edge of the lake, he followed it, guided as much by
the sobbing of the ripples against the bank as by the vague muffled
outline, till he reached the inlet of the stream which fed it. From this
point the ground rose rapidly, and in a few minutes he could look
over the mist again and see the house already twinkling with
scattered lights, moored like some great ship in that white sea. A
few hundred yards more brought him to the stables, and,
conveniently for his purpose, at the gate stood Jim and a helper,
their work over, smoking and chatting. Geoffrey approached till it
was certain they could see who he was.
"Is that you, Jim?" he said. "They want you at the house."
Jim knocked out his pipe and followed. His clothes had "evening out"
stamped upon them, and there seemed to be an unpleasing
curtailment of his liberty in prospect.
"Come round by the lake," said Geoffrey in a low voice, when the
groom had joined him. "I have something to tell you."
He waited till they were certainly out of ear-shot.
"Now, Jim," he said, "it's just this. We believe that an attempt will be
made to-night to murder Lord Vail. I want your help, though I can't
yet tell you in what way you can help, because I don't know. But will
you do all you can or are told to do?"
"Gawd bless my soul!" said Jim. Then, with a return to his ordinary
impassivity, "yes, sir, I'll do anything you tell me to help."
"Come on, then. You can trust me that you shall run no
unreasonable risks."
"I'm not thinking you'll let them murder me instead, sir," said Jim.
"And may I ask who is going to do the murdering?"
Geoffrey hesitated a moment, but on reflection there seemed to him
to be no reason for concealing anything.
"We believe—Dr. Armytage and I, that is—that Sanders, Mr. Francis's
man, will attempt it."
Jim whistled under his breath.
"Bring him on," he said. "Lord! I should like to have a go at that
Sanders, sir! He walks into the stable yard as if every horse in the
place belonged to him."
They had by this time skirted the lake again, and the booming of the
sluice sounded near at hand. Then, striking for higher ground, they
saw they had already passed the house, and close in front of them
swam the birds of the box hedge. The mist had sunk back a little,
and now they sat, as if in a receding tide, on the long peninsula of
the hedge itself, visible above the drift, and black in the moonlight.
"This way," said Geoffrey, and groping round to the back of it they
found the overgrown door and entered. Thence, going cautiously
and feeling their way, they passed down the length of it, and soon
saw in front of them, like a blurred moon, the light from the gun-
room windows. The time had been calculated to a nicety, for they
had been there scarcely five minutes, when a shadow moved across
the blind, which was then rolled up, and the window silently lifted a
crack. The figure, owing to the density of the mist, was
indistinguishable, but Geoffrey recognised the doctor's voice when it
whispered his name. He touched Jim to make him follow, and
together they stood close by the window.
"Good you have Jim with you," said the doctor, "and you have told
him we may need him. I want him inside the house; so go with him
through the secret passage, and open the panel by the stairs which
you told me of. I shall be there, and I will tell you what we are going
to do. Harry has gone to dress, and the house is quiet. Wait,
Geoffrey. Take this."
And he handed him out a rook rifle and eight or ten cartridges.
"Put these inside the hedge," he whispered, "and come round at
once with Jim."
Five minutes later Geoffrey gently opened the panel of the door, and
the doctor glided in like a ghost, latching it noiselessly behind him.
His face brooded and gloomed no laugh; it was alert and active.
"There is very little time," he said; "so, first for you, Geoffrey. Go
back for the rifle and cartridges, and get somewhere in cover where
you can command the front of the house. What course events will
take outside I can not say. But the Luck and the plate will be stolen,
and they will have to get them away somehow. You must stop that.
Sanders, I suspect, will try to remove them."
"Beg your pardon, sir," put in Jim, "but Sanders was down at the
stable this afternoon, and said that the door of the coach house and
one of the loose boxes was to be left unlocked to-night, in case a
doctor was wanted for Mr. Francis. He said he could put to himself,
sir, so that none of us need sit up."
The doctor's keen face grew a shade more animate, his mouth
bordered on a smile.
"Good lad!" he said.—"Well, that's your job, Geoffrey: you must use
your discretion entirely. You may have to deal with a pretty
desperate man, and it is possible you will feel safer with that rifle."
"Where shall I go?" asked Geoffrey.
"I thought the summerhouse on the knoll would be a good place; it
stands above the mist."
"Excellent. And for Jim?"
"We must be guided by the course of events. Jim will have to wait
here, in any case, probably till eleven, or even later. Then I expect
he will go to bed in Harry's room, where I—I can't tell you: it is all in
the clouds at present. I want to spare Harry horror. Anyhow, he will
stop here until I tap twice on the panel outside. Now I can not wait.
Harry may be down any minute; we dine at a quarter past. Ah! this
is for you, Geoffrey," and he handed him a packet of sandwiches
—"and this for you, Jim.—Now, you to the summerhouse, Geoffrey—
Jim waits here: I dine with Harry. Yes, your hand, and yours. God
help our work!"
Though never a voluminous talker, the doctor was even more silent
than usual at dinner that night, and, despite the alertness of his eye,
confessed to an extreme fatigue. Thus it was that, soon after ten, he
and Harry went upstairs; he straight to his room, the latter to tap
discreetly at the door of the sick room and learn the latest of the
patient.
The change of Harry's room from the one he usually occupied to
that communicating with the doctor's caused no comment, either
silent or spoken, from him, nor did the loss of the key seem to him
in any way remarkable. He came straight from his visit to Mr.
Francis, to give the news to the doctor.
"Still sleeping," he said, "and sleeping very quietly, so Sanders tells
me. And I—I feel as if I should sleep the clock round! I really think I
shall go to bed at once."
He went through the doctor's room and turned on his light, then
appeared again in the doorway.
"Got everything you want?" he asked. "Have a whisky and soda?"
A confused idea of metholycine, a distinct idea that he did not wish
Harry to run the risk of being seen by Sanders going to another
room than the ordinary, made itself felt in the doctor's reply.
"Not for worlds!" he said. "A poisonous habit."
"That means I mustn't have any, does it?" asked Harry from the
doorway. "Now that is hard lines. I want some, but not enough to go
and fetch it from the hall myself. Do have some: give me an excuse."
"Not even that," said the doctor.
"Well, good-night," said the lad, and he closed the door between the
two rooms.
For so tired a man, the doctor on the closing of the door exhibited a
considerable briskness. Very quickly and quietly he took off dress
coat, shoes, and shirt, and buttoning a dark-gray coat over his vest,
set his door ajar, and switched off his light. The hour for action, he
well realized, might strike any moment, but he was prepared, as far
as preparation was possible. Outside there was waiting Geoffrey with
the rook rifle; inside the secret passage the spurious Harry—both, he
knew, calm and bland for any emergency. Meanwhile the real Harry
was safe for the present; none but he and Templeton knew of the
change of room, and none could reach him but through the chamber
he himself occupied. But an intricate and subtle passage was likely
to be ahead, and as yet its windings were unconjecturable. As a
working hypothesis, for he could find no better, he had assumed that
Mr. Francis's plans were in the main unaltered. Harry, drugged and
unconscious, was to be taken to the plate closet at some hour in this
dead night, where Sanders would be waiting. Yet this conjecture
might be utterly at fault; in any case the drugged whisky, mixed as it
now was with innocuous salt, could not have the effect desired, and
for anything unforeseen (and here was at least one step
untraceable), he must have every sense alert, to interpret to the
best of his ability the smallest clew that came from the room
opposite. Mr. Francis and Sanders were there now, firearms were not
to be feared: here was the sum of his certainties. This also, and this
from his study of Mr. Francis he considered probable to the verge of
certainty, Harry would be unconscious when the death blow was
given.
In the dark, time may either fly with swallows' wings or lag with the
tortoise, for the watch in a man's brain is an unaccountable
mechanism, and the doctor had no idea how long he had been
waiting, when he heard the latch of a door open somewhere in the
passage outside. Two noiseless steps took him to his own, and
through the crack, where he had left it ajar, he saw a long
perpendicular chink of light; bright it seemed and near. Without
further audible sound this grew gradually fainter, and with the most
stealthy precautions he opened his own door and peered out. Some
fifteen yards distant, moving very slowly down the passage, were
two figures—those of Mr. Francis and his valet. The latter was
dressed in ordinary clothes, the former, vividly visible by the light of
the candle the servant carried, in a light garish dressing gown and
red slippers. At this moment they paused opposite the door of the
room Harry usually occupied, and here held a word of inaudible
colloquy. There was a table just outside the door, fronting the top of
the stairs, and a dim lamp on a bracket hung above it. On it Mr.
Francis put down a small bottle, and what looked like an ordinary
table napkin, and the two went down the stairs.
It was the time for caution and rapidity; already, as he knew, luck
had favoured him, in that neither had entered Harry's room, and
after giving them some ten seconds' law, he went noiselessly over
the thick carpet of the passage to the table and opened the bottle
Mr. Francis had left there. The unmistakable fumes of chloroform
greeted his nostril, and he stood awhile in unutterable perplexity.
Fresh and valuable as this evidence was, it was difficult to form any
certain conclusions about it. Conceivably, the chloroform was an
additional precaution, in case Harry had not drunk the whisky;
conceivably also the metholycine idea had been altogether
abandoned in the absence of a skilled operator. That at least he
could easily settle, and turning into the bedroom Harry usually
occupied, he switched on the electric light. Templeton had followed
his instructions about making the room look habitable, but on the
dressing table stood what was perhaps not the work of Templeton. A
cut-glass bottle was there on a tray, with a glass and a siphon. He
spilled a teaspoonful of the spirit into the glass and tasted it. Salt.
So much, then, was certain: one or both of the figures he had seen
go downstairs would return here, with the chloroform; and still
cudgelling his brains over the main problem, as to why Mr. Francis
had gone downstairs at all, he lingered not, but felt his way down to
the bottom of the flight. Here he paused, but hearing nothing,
tapped twice at the panel which opened into the secret passage. It
was at once withdrawn, and Jim stepped out.
"Come!" he whispered.
With the same rapid stealthiness they ascended again, crossed the
landing, and entered Harry's bedroom. The bed stood facing the
door in an angle between the window and the wall, and the doctor
drew the curtain across the window, which was deep and with a seat
in it.
"Undress at once," he said to Jim. "They might notice that your
clothes were not lying about if they have a light. Quick! off with
them—coat, waistcoat, shirt, trousers, boots, as naked as your
mother bore you. There is a nightshirt, put it on. Now get into bed,
and lie with your face half covered. Do not stir or make any sound
whatever till I turn up the light or call to you. I shall be behind the
curtain."
There were two electric lamps in the room, one by the door, the
other with its own switch over the bed. The doctor had lit both, and
as soon as the groom was in bed, extinguished the one by the door.
Then, crossing the room, he got up behind the curtain in the window
seat, and from there turned off the other.
"And when I turn up the light, Jim," he whispered, "throw off
anything that may have been placed over your face, and spring up in
bed. Till then be asleep. You understand?"
"Yes, sir," said Jim softly.
At that moment, with the suddenness of a long-forgotten memory
returned, the doctor guessed why Mr. Francis had gone downstairs.
The glory of the guess was so great that he could not help speaking.
"He has gone for the Luck," he said.
"Yes, sir," said Jim again, and there were darkness and silence.
Interminable eons passed, or may be ten minutes, but at the end of
infinite time came scarcely sound, but an absence of complete
silence, from the door. From behind the thick curtains the doctor
could see nothing, but a moment later came the gentle sigh of the
scraped carpet, and from that, or from the infallible sixth sense that
awakes only in the dark, he knew that some one had entered. Then
from closer at hand he heard the faintest shuffle of movement, and
he knew that, whoever this was in the room besides the groom and
himself, he was not a couple of yards distant. After another while the
least vibration sounded from the glasses in the tray, as if a hand had
touched them unwittingly, and again dead stillness succeeded, till
the doctor's ears sang with it. Then from the bed his ear suddenly
focused the breathings of two persons—one very short and quick,
the other a slow, steady respiration, and simultaneously with that his
nostril caught the whiff of chloroform. Again the rustle of linen
sounded, and hearing that, he held his breath and counted the pulse
which throbbed in his own temples. Twenty times it beat, and on the
twentieth stroke his finger pressed the switch of the light, and he
drew back the curtain.
Already Jim was sitting up in bed, bland and impassive in face, and
his left hand flung the reeking napkin from him. By the bedside
crouched a white-haired figure clad in a blue dressing gown; close
by it on the floor stood the leather case which held the Luck; the
right hand was still stretched over the bed, though the napkin which
it had held was plucked from it. His face was flushed with colour; the
bright blue eyes, a little puckered up in this sudden change from
darkness to the glare of the electric light, moved slowly from Jim to
the doctor and back again. But no word passed the thin, compressed
lips.
Suddenly the alertness of the face was gone like a burst bubble; the
mouth opened and drooped, the eyes grew staring and sightless;
the left hand only seemed to retain its vitality, and felt gropingly on
the carpet for the Luck. Then, with a slow, supreme effort, the figure
half raised itself, drawing the jewel tight to its breast, folding both
arms about it, with fingers intertwined in the strap that carried it.
Then it collapsed completely, rolled over, and lay face downward on
the floor.
For one moment neither of the others stirred; then, recovering
himself, the doctor stepped down from the window seat.
"Put on your coat and trousers, Jim," he said, "and come with me
quickly. Yes, leave him—it—there. I will come back presently. We
have to catch Sanders now, and we must go without a light. You
behaved admirably. Now follow me."
"Is it dead, sir?" whispered Jim.
"I think so. Come!"
In the eagerness of their pursuit they crossed the passage without
looking to right hand or left, and felt their way down the many-
angled stairs. The hall was faintly lit by the pallor of moonshine that
came through the skylight, and without difficulty they found the
baize door leading into the servants' parts. But here with the
shuttered windows reigned the darkness of Egypt, and despairing of
finding his way, the doctor lit a match to guide them to the farther
end of the passage where was the plate closet. But when they
reached it, it was to find the door open and none within. In all
directions stood boxes with forced lids. Here a dozen spoons were
scattered on the floor, here a saltcellar; but the rifling had been fairly
complete.
"How long do you suppose we were waiting in the dark?" he asked
Jim. "Anyhow, it was long enough for Sanders and Mr. Francis to
have taken most of the plate. I had thought they would do that after
—afterward. Now, where is the plate, and where is Sanders?"
"Can't say, sir," said Jim.
The match which had showed the disorder of the place had burned
out, and the doctor, still frowning over the next step, had just lit
another, when from outside there rang out the sharp ping of a rifle
shot.
"That is Geoffrey!" he said, "and what in God's name is happening?
Upstairs again."
They groped their way back along the basement to the door leading
into the hall. Close to this went up the back stairs forming the
servants' communication with the upper story, and, seeing these, the
doctor clicked his tongue against his teeth.
"That's how we missed him," he said; "he went this way up to Mr.
Francis, while we were going down the front stairs."
"Yes, sir," said Jim.
They passed through into the hall, and a draught of cold air met
them. There was no longer any reason for secret movements, and
the doctor turned on the electric light. The front door was open, and
the wreaths of dense mist streamed in.
"Go and see if you can help Mr. Geoffrey, Jim," he said, "if you can
find him. It is clear that Sanders has left the house: who else could
have opened that door? I must see to that which we left upstairs."
He ran up. The room door as they had left it was open; on the floor
still lay what they had left there. But it was lying no longer on its
face; the sightless eyes were turned to the ceiling, and the Luck was
no longer clasped, with fingers intertwined in its strap, to the breast.
The doctor fought down an immense repugnance against touching
the body; but the instinct of saving life, however remote that
chance, prevailed, and taking hold of one of the hands, he felt for
the pulse. But as he touched it two of the fingers fell backward,
dislocated or broken.
Then, with a swift hissing intake of his breath, he pressed his finger
on the wrist. But the search for the pulse was vain.
 CHAPTER XXV
MR. FRANCIS SLEEPS
It was about a quarter past eight when Geoffrey left Jim in the
secret passage, and, in accordance with his instructions, went back
to the box hedge where he had concealed the rifle and cartridges.
With these he skirted wide up the short grassy slope that led to the
summerhouse, and trying the door, found it unlocked. It stood, as he
had supposed, some fifteen feet above the level of the mist that lay
round the house below, and was admirably situated for the
observation of any movement or manœuvre that might be made, for
it commanded a clear view past the front of the house down to the
lake, while the road from the stables passed not fifty yards from it,
joining the carriage sweep: from the carriage sweep at right angles
ran the drive. Clearly, then, if Jim's account of Sanders's visit and
order to the stables covered a design, the working out of it must
take place before his eyes.
The summerhouse stood close to the background of wood in which
last summer Evie and Mr. Francis had once walked, a mere black blot
against the blackness of the trees, and Geoffrey, pulling a chair to
the open door, sat commandingly invisible. His rifle he leaned
against the wall, ready to his hand, and it was in more than
moderate composure that he ate the sandwiches with which the
doctor had provided him. There was, he expected, a long vigil in
front of him before any active share in the operations should stand
to his name; the first act would be played in that great square ship
of a house that lay anchored out in the sea of mist. What should
pass there in the next two hours he strenuously forbore to
conjecture; for it was his business to keep his brain cool, and avoid
all thoughts which might heat that or render his hand unsteady. That
short interview with the doctor had given him a confidence that
made firm the shifting quicksands of fear which all day had quaked
within him, for the man had spoken to him with authority, masterful
and decided, which had stilled the shudderings and perplexities of
the last twelve hours. He had to see to it that they should not awake
again.
At intervals of seemingly incalculable length the clock from the
stable drowsily told the hour, and but for that and the slow wheeling
of the young moon, he could have believed that time had ceased.
No breath of wind stirred in the trees behind, or shredded the
opaque levels of the mist in front; a death and stagnation lay over
the world, and no sound but the muffled murmur of the sluice from
the lake broke the silence. The world spun in space, and the sound
of the invisible outpouring waters might have been the rustle of its
passage through interstellar space.
Then the spell and soothing of the stillness laid hold of him; the hour
of action was near, the intolerable fret of anxiety nearly over. Inside
the house that dark, keen-eyed man was not one whom the prudent
would care to see in opposition (and on which side he was Geoffrey
no longer entertained a doubt's shadow), nor, for that matter, was
his lieutenant, the impassive, spurious Harry. By his unwilling means
last summer had Mr. Francis made the first of his vile attempts; by
his means, perhaps, this should be the last. Geoffrey could rest
assured that they would do all that lay in the power of two very cool
heads: his business was to see that his own part should not be less
well done.
Some years ago—or was the stroke still resonant?—half past ten had
struck on the stable clock; and since eleven had not yet sounded, it
was earlier than he had suspected, when there came a noise which
sent his heart hammering for a moment in his throat. He could not
at once localize or identify it, and, though still obscure and muffled,
he had only just decided that it could not be very far off, before he
guessed what it was. Its direction and its nature came to him
together: some vehicle was being cautiously driven over the grass
toward the house from the stables, and on the moment he caught
sight of it. It was moving at a very slow pace, more than half
drowned in the mist, and all he could see of it was the head and
back of a horse, the head and shoulders of the man who led it, and
the box seat and rail of some vehicle of the wagonette type. It
reached the gravel walk with a crisp, crunching sound, and drew up
there. Then he heard the unmistakable rattle of the brake being put
hard on, and the man, tying the reins in a knot, looped them round
the whip-holder. He then left it, not forty yards from where Geoffrey
sat, and was swallowed up in the fog going toward the house. The
curtain was up for the second act. What had the first been?
The thing had passed so quickly and silently that he could almost
have believed that his imagination had played him some trick, were
it not for the sight of that truncated horse and carriage which
testified to its reality. There, without doubt, was the carriage from
the stables, of which Jim had told them; but he could not have
sworn to the identity of the man who led it, in the uncertain light.
And he picked up his rifle and laid it across his knees, prepared
again to wait.
Soon afterward eleven struck, and, while the strokes were still
vibrating, came the second interruption to his silent waiting. Out of
the mist between the wagonette and the house dimly appeared two
heads moving slowly toward the carriage, and rising gradually as
they climbed the slope above the level mist, till they were distinct
and clear as far as the shoulders. They walked about a yard apart,
and words low and inaudible to the watcher passed between them.
Arrived at the carriage, they seemed to set something down, and
then with an effort hoist it into the body of the vehicle. And as they
again raised themselves, Geoffrey saw that the one head sparkled
whitely in the moonshine, and he well knew to whom those
venerable locks belonged. Then there came audible words.
"Come back, then, Sanders," said Mr. Francis, "and wait at the top of
the back stairs, while I go very gently to his room to see if it is all
right. In any case I shall use the chloroform. Then, when I call you,
come and help me to carry him down to the plate closet. There I
shall leave you, and go back to bed. Afterward, drive hard to the
village, leave the plate at the cottage I told you of, and bring the
doctor back. Are you ready? Where is the—ah! thank you. No, I
prefer to carry it myself. The Luck! the Luck! At last—at last!"
He raised a hand above his head; it grasped a case. The man's face
was turned upward toward the moon, and Geoffrey, looking thereon,
could scarcely stifle an exclamation of horror.
"It is not a man's face," he said to himself. "It is some mad
incarnation of Satan!"
In another minute all was silent again, the inhuman figures had
vanished; again only the section of horse and cart appeared above
the mist. For a moment Geoffrey hesitated, unwilling by any possible
risk to lose the ultimate success, but the chance of being heard or
seen by those retreated figures was infinitesimal, and he crept
crouchingly down the slope to where the wagonette stood. Then,
opening the door, he lifted out, exerting his whole strength, the load
the two had put there, and, bent double under the ponderous
weight, made his way back to the summerhouse. The burden clinked
and rang as he moved: there could be no doubt what his prize was.
He had not long been back at his post when muffled, rapid footsteps
again rivetted him, and he saw a moving dark shape coming with
great swiftness up from the house. As before, with the rising of the
ground, it grew freer of the mist, till when it reached the carriage he
could easily recognise the head and shoulders of Sanders. Somehow,
and if possible without the cost of human life, he must have
stopped. He had already swung a small case easily recognisable by
the watcher on to the box, and he himself was in the act of
mounting, when an idea struck Geoffrey. Taking quick but careful
aim, he fired at the horse, just below the ear. At so short a range a
miss would have been an incredible thing, and with the report of the
rifle the head sank out of sight into the mist.
Then he stood up.
"If you move, Sanders, I fire!" he cried. "This time at you!"
But even as he said the words, the box was already empty. The man
had slipped down with astonishing rapidity behind the wagonette,
and when Geoffrey next saw him dimly through the mist he was
already some yards away. Even while he hesitated, with another
cartridge yet in his hand, he was gone, and waiting only to put it in,
he ran down to the cart. The case, the same beyond a doubt as was
in Mr. Francis's hand ten minutes ago, which he had seen Sanders
swing on to the box just now, before mounting himself, was gone
also.
At that he ran down, at the top of the speed he dare use, after the
vanished figure. Once he heard the crunch of gravel to the right, and
turned that way, already bewildered by this blind pursuit in the mist;
once he thought he heard the rustle of bushes to his left, and turned
there. Then, beyond any doubt, he heard his own name called. At
that he stopped.
"Who is it?" he cried.
"Me, sir—Jim," said an imperturbable voice close to him.
"Ah! is Harry—is his lordship safe?"
"Yes, sir, quite safe. The doctor sent me out to see if I could help
you."
Before Geoffrey could reply, a sudden wild cry rang out into the
night, broken short by the sound of a great splash.
"My Gawd, what's that?" cried Jim, startled for once.
"I shouldn't wonder if it was Sanders," said Geoffrey. "Come to the
lake, Jim. God forgive us for trying to rescue the devil! I wonder if
he can swim?"
"Like a stone, sir, I hope," said Jim cheerfully.
The roar of the sluice was a guide to them, but they had lost each
other twenty times before they reached the lake. In that dense and
blinding mist, here risen high above their heads, even sound came
muffled and uncertain, and it was through trampled flower beds and
the swishing of shrubs against their faces that they gained the edge
and stood on the foaming sluice. The water was very high, the noise
bewildering to the senses; and yet, despite the fact that five minutes
ago Geoffrey had been hesitating whether or not to shoot at that
vague runner through the fog, caring nothing whether he killed him,
yet now he did not hesitate to run a risk himself, in order to save
from drowning what had been within an ace of being the mark for
his bullet.
"He must be here," he said to Jim; "the pull of the water would drag
him against the sluice."
"You're not going in after that vermin, Mr. Geoffrey?" asked Jim
incredulously.
Geoffrey did not reply, but kicked off his boots and threw his coat on
the grass.
"Stand by to give me a hand," he said, and plunged out of sight.
"Well, I'm damned!" said Jim, and took up his stand close to the
edge of the water gate. The risk he had been willing to run for his
master he had faced without question, indeed with a certain
blitheness of spirit; but to bear a toothache for Sanders's life
appeared to him a bargain that demanded consideration. But even
as he wondered, a voice from close to his feet called him.
"Give a hand," bubbled Geoffrey from the water; "I've got him. I
dived straight on to him."
Jim caught hold of Geoffrey first by the hair, and from that guided
his grasp to a dripping shirt collar. Then, after Geoffrey had got a
foothold on the steep bank, between them they dragged the
nerveless and empty-handed figure from the water and laid it on the
grass.
"Dead or alive, that is the only question," said Geoffrey. "Get back to
the house, Jim, and bring the doctor here. I don't know what to do
to a drowned man."
Jim made an obvious call on his resolution. To stay here with that
dripping clay at his feet was a task that demanded more courage
than he had needed to get into Harry's bed.
"No, sir," he said. "You run back to the house and get your wet
things off. I'll stay here!" and he set his teeth.
Geoffrey could not deny the common sense of this, nor indeed had
he any wish to, and shuffled and groped back to the house. As yet
he knew nothing except that Harry was safe, and for the present his
curiosity was gorged with that satisfying assurance. The hall door he
found open, the hall empty and lit, and running upstairs, he saw the
door of Harry's bedroom open, and went in. The doctor was there;
he was just covering with a sheet that which he had removed from
the floor on to Harry's bed. He turned round as Geoffrey entered.
"Quick!" said the latter. "Go down to the sluice. Sanders lost his way
in the fog, and fell in. We fished him out, alive or dead I don't
know."
His eye fell on the covered shape on the bed with an awful and
sudden misgiving, for it was Harry's room.
"Not——" he began.
The doctor turned back the sheet for a moment, and then replaced it
quickly.
"Go to my room very quietly, Geoffrey," he said, "for Harry is asleep
next door, and get your wet things off. Put on blankets or something,
or clothes of mine. By the sluice, you say?"
It was some half hour later that Geoffrey heard slow, stumbling
steps on the stairs, and barefooted and wrapped in blankets he went
out into the passage. Jim and the doctor were carrying what he had
found in the ooze of the lake into Harry's room, and they laid it on
the floor by the bed.
"It was no use," said the doctor. "I could not arouse the least sign of
vitality. Cover the face. Let us leave them."
He stood in silence a moment after this was done.
"So they lie together," he said, "in obedience to the inscrutable
decrees of God. In his just and merciful hands we leave them."
So the three went out, leaving the two there.

The doctor led the way down into the hall, Geoffrey in his blankets
following him. Jim had brought the rest of his clothes out from the
chamber of death, and stayed in the passage dressing himself, for it
was better there than in the room. No word passed between the
others till he had joined them. Then said the doctor:
"None of us will be able to go to bed till we have pieced together
what has happened in the last two hours. So——"
"Two hours!" interrupted Geoffrey.
"Yes, it is now only a little after twelve. It was soon after ten that
Harry went to his uncle's room, before going to bed, and found him
sleeping.
"He sleeps now," said Geoffrey. Then in a whisper, "Tell me, did
Sanders kill him?"
The doctor shook his head.
"No; Mr. Francis, I feel sure, was dead when—when Sanders came.
But he took the Luck, so I imagine, from him. I left him clasping the
Luck; I returned to find it gone. And two fingers of his hand were
broken. But where is the Luck?"
"That I think I can tell you," said Geoffrey, "when my turn comes.
But begin at the beginning. I left Jim before dinner in the secret
passage."
So, in a few words, the doctor told all that had happened inside the
house from the moment when he opened his door and saw the two,
who now lay upstairs, talking in the passage, down to his return
from the plate closet to find the Luck torn from Mr. Francis's death
grip. Then Geoffrey took on the tale to its completion. At the end he
laid his hand on the groom's shoulder, with the action of a friend and
an equal.
"We have done the talking," he said, "but here's the fellow who did
the hard thing in this night's work. I could no more have borne that
—that man creeping across the room to where I lay in bed——"
"Than I could have jumped into the lake in the dark, sir," said Jim,
"when all that was to be found was— Lord love us all!"
Then there was silence for a while, for the events were still too awful
and too close for chattering. The doctor broke it.
"There are two more things to be done," he said: "one, to bring back
the plate from the summerhouse; the other, Harry. He must be told
everything, but to-morrow will be as well as to-night. By the way,
Geoffrey, where will you sleep?—You too, Jim? Can you get into the
stable so late?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," said Jim. "I'll wake the helper.—I brought in
the rifle, Mr. Geoffrey; you left it by the lake.—Shall I help bring in
the plate, sir?"
"No, we must get Templeton and another man in any case," said the
doctor. "It must be stowed somewhere to-night; the lock of the plate
closet is forced. So get you to bed, Jim. Shake hands like a man, for
you are one."
"Jim, you devil, say good-night to a man," said Geoffrey, and
pleasure and pride made the groom laugh outright.
"But you won't tell Harry to-night?" said Geoffrey, after a moment.
"Hush! What's that?—My God, Harry!"
The gleam of a candle shone through the door leading to the
staircase, and Harry advanced two steps into the hall.
"I woke just now," he said, speaking to the doctor, "and—Geoffrey!"
"Call Jim back," said the doctor.—"Steady, Harry. Not a word!"
Geoffrey gathered his blankets round him and went to the hall door,
which the groom had just closed behind him. He came back at once
in answer to the call.
"But what is it? What is it all?" cried Harry. "Where is my uncle? I
woke, as I began to tell you, and thought I heard people moving
about, and got uneasy. I thought he might be worse, or something.
Then I went through into your room, Dr. Armytage, but you were not
there. His door, too, was open, and there was a light burning, but he
was not there. Where is he? What is it?" he cried again. "Geoffrey—
Jim—what are you doing here?"
He looked from one to the other bewildered, but for a moment none
could speak.
"Oh, for the love of God, tell me!" he cried again.
Jim's right hand went to his head in salutation.
"Please, my lord, it's late; I'd better go," he said feebly.
"No, wait," said Harry. "Damn it all, do what you are told! The doctor
wishes you to stop, so stop. But why and how is Geoff here, and
Jim? And where is he?"
Both of the other young men looked at the doctor, and without more
words he told the story for the second time, with as direct a brevity
as was possible. No word of any kind interrupted him, but in Harry's
eyes a wondering horror deepened and grew convinced. Once only
did any sound come from him, and that when the doctor said that
beyond doubt Mr. Francis was not sane; but then a long sigh, it
would seem of unutterable relief, moaned from his lips. He heard of
the plot, as originally told by his uncle to the doctor, of all the
business of the metholycine, of all the communications going on
between his uncle's supposed accomplice and Geoffrey, of the scene
on the pavement of Grosvenor Square. Then came for the second
time that evening the events of the last two hours, but Harry's head
had sunk on his hands, and the eyes of the others no longer looked
at him, for it was not seemly to behold so great an amazement of
horror and grief.