The doctor, who could obtain no rational reply to any of his questions, summoned another great specialist on mental ailments, who quickly p.r.o.nounced the case as extremely grave, but not altogether incurable.
Insanity of the character from which she was suffering frequently, he said, took a most acute form, but he was not without hope that, with careful and proper treatment, the balance of her mind might again be restored. The family were instructed not to allow, on any account, any question to be put to her regarding the manner in which the attack had commenced. The strain of endeavouring to recollect would, the doctor a.s.sured us, do her incalculable harm.
Grindlay remained with me at Lady Stretton"s for an hour or more, and when we left we drove together as far as my chambers, where I alighted, while he went on to Scotland Yard.
"Remember," he said, before I wished him good-night, and promised to see him on the morrow, "not a word to a soul that we have discovered the body. Only by keeping our own counsel, and acting with the greatest discretion and patience, can we arrest the guilty one."
"Grindlay, you suspect my friend, Captain Bethune," I said. "It"s useless to deny it."
"It is the privilege of a man in my profession to suspect, and his suspicions often fall on innocent persons," he said, with a faint smile.
"The body has now been discovered, and we know a crime has been committed. Therefore, we can obtain a warrant against any person upon whom suspicion may rest."
I pursued the subject no further, but sat back in the cab, fully convinced by these words of his intention to arrest Jack on a charge of murder.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
THE FUGITIVE.
In my own room I sat for a long time silent in deep reverie. Saunders glided in and out, brought me a brandy-and-soda that went flat, untasted, and placed at my elbow my letters, with a deferential suggestion that some of them might be important. Glancing at their superscriptions, I tossed them aside, in no mood to be bothered with cards of invitation or tradesmen"s circulars.
Two hours pa.s.sed, and the ever-watchful Saunders retired for the night.
Then, after pacing the room for a long time in hesitation, I at last determined to write to Jack, who had returned home, warning him of his peril. I knew that by shielding a murderer from justice I accepted a great moral responsibility; nevertheless, I had formed a plan which I meant at any hazard to pursue. It was, I felt certain, my last chance of obtaining the knowledge I had so long and vainly sought, therefore I sat down, wrote a hurried note to him, in which I urged him to fly and hide himself for a time; but, after obtaining a hiding-place, to telegraph to me, using the name of a mutual friend, as I desired to see him at the earliest possible moment. This note I took across to the Club, and gave it to the commissionaire, with strict injunctions to deliver it personally.
Three-quarters of an hour later the old pensioner returned, saying that he had placed the letter in Captain Bethune"s hand, and as I strolled again homeward I pondered over the serious responsibility of my action.
In my heart I felt convinced that my friend had killed Sternroyd.
Indeed, every fact was plain. I knew that he was a murderer, and my previous esteem had now been transformed into a deep-rooted repugnance.
If he were innocent he could never have been so suspicious of me as he had been since that memorable night when he found me in his chambers.
Within myself I admitted that I had no right in his rooms; nevertheless the old adage, "Murder will out," forcibly occurred to me. If there was one witness who could bring Captain Bethune to the gallows it was myself.
Ah, how quickly things had changed! A few brief weeks ago Jack was the popular soldier and brilliant writer hailed by the Press as one of the greatest living novelists; while Dora, charming and radiant, was courted, flattered, and admired at home, in the Park, in the ball-room-- everywhere. Now the one was a murderer, hounded by the police; and the other, alas! demented.
Patience and discretion. It was Grindlay"s motto, and I would take it as mine. Already, as I walked through the silent, deserted streets, Bethune was, I knew, preparing for hurried flight somewhere out of reach. I alone had frustrated Grindlay"s plans, but only as a means to attain my own end.
Next day pa.s.sed, and in the evening Saunders brought in the Inspector"s card. When Grindlay entered his first words were:
"Your friend Bethune has returned and again bolted."
I feigned surprise, but in the course of the conversation that ensued he sought my advice on the most likely places to find him. I suggested Hounslow, but the detective had already made inquiries there, and could glean nothing.
"The curious part of the affair is that he should, after his recent extraordinary show of bravado in returning to England, suddenly become suspicious just at the moment when we meant to take him," he said, after we had been discussing the matter. "I suppose you have no further suggestions to offer as to any likelihood of his whereabouts?"
"None. I should not expect him to try and escape abroad again after his last futile attempt to elude you."
"No. The ports are watched, and he might as well walk into the Yard at once as to attempt to cross the Channel," remarked the detective, smiling. "But I must be going. If you hear anything let me know at the Yard at once."
I promised, and the inspector, taking one of my cigars, lit it and left.
A week went by, but no word of the discovery of the ghastly evidence of the crime found its way into the papers. For reasons of their own the police obtained the postponement of the inquest, although the body had been removed to the mortuary, and the house still remained in the possession of a plain-clothes" man. The theory of the Criminal Investigation Department was that the house would be visited by someone who, unaware of the discoveries that had been made, would walk straight into the arms of an officer of the law.
But it proved a waiting game. Another week pa.s.sed. Several times I called at Lady Stretton"s, only to learn, alas! that Dora had not improved in the slightest degree. She recognised no one--not even her mother. Her ladyship was prostrate, while Mabel, whom I met one morning when I called, seemed haggard and particularly anxious regarding her sister.
The thought did not escape me that Mabel herself had, at least on one occasion, most probably visited that strange house that had its entrance in Radnor Place, and I was on the point of mentioning it to her, but decided to wait and see whether she alluded to it. She, however, did not. When I asked her for news of Fyneshade she replied, snappishly, that she neither knew nor cared where he was. In fact, she treated me with a frigid reserve quite unusual to her.
About noon one day Saunders brought me a telegram. Opening it, I found the words:
"Tell Boyd to sell Tintos.--Roland. Post, Alf, Moselle."
It was from Bethune. Roland was the name we had arranged. So he had, notwithstanding all the precautions taken by the police, succeeded in again escaping to the Continent, and was now in hiding at the post-house of the little riparian village of Alf. I knew the place. It was far in the heart of the beautiful Moselle country on the bank of the broad river that wound through its vine-clad ruin-crested hills, altogether a quaint Arcadian place, quiet, restful, and unknown to the felt-hatted horde of tourists who swarm over the sunny Rhineland like clouds of locusts.
Three days after receiving the telegram I alighted from a dusty, lumbering fly at the door of the building, half post-house, half inn, and was greeted heartily by my friend, who spoke in French and wore as a disguise the loose blue blouse so much affected by all cla.s.ses of Belgians. Alone in the little dining-room he whispered briefly that he was going under the name of Roland, representing himself to be a land-owner from Chaudfontaine, near Liege. None of the people in the inn knew French; therefore, his faulty accent pa.s.sed unnoticed. When there were listeners we spoke in French to preserve the deception, and I am fain to admit that his disguise and manner were alike excellent.
Together we ate our evening meal with the post-house keeper and his buxom, fair-haired wife; then, while the crimson sunset still reflected upon the broad river, we strolled out along the bank to talk.
All the land around on this south side is orchard--great pear and cherry trees linked together by low-growing vines, and in the spring months they make a sea of blossom stretching to the river"s edge. The noise of the weir is loud, but the song of the myriad birds can be heard above it. Away eastward, down the widening, curving stream, above the vines there arise, two miles off, the blackened, crumbling towers of mediaeval strongholds. To the north lies the Eifel, that mysterious volcanic district penetrated by few; to the south the Marienburg and the ever-busy Rhine. The vale of the Moselle on that brilliant evening was a serene and sylvan scene, glorious in the blaze of blood-red sunset, and when we had walked beyond the village, cigar in mouth, with affected indifference, Bethune turned to me abruptly, saying:
"Well, now, after all this infernal secrecy, what in the name of Heaven do you want with me?"
"You apparently reproach me for acting in your interests rather than in my own," I answered brusquely.
"I acted upon your so-called warning and left England--"
"Without seeing Dora?" I inquired.
"She"s away in the country somewhere," he snapped. It was evident that he was entirely ignorant of the dire misfortune that had befallen her.
"My warning was justified," I said quietly. "That a warrant is out for your arrest I am in a position to affirm, and--"
"A warrant issued on your own information, I presume," he interrupted with a sneer.
"I have given no information," I replied. "I obtained the truth from the detective who held the warrant, and sent word to you immediately."
"Extremely kind, I"m sure. You"ve done all you can to prejudice me, and now it seems that for some unaccountable reason you have altered your tactics and are looking after my interests. I place no faith in such friends."
"My tactics, as you are pleased to term them, are at least legitimate,"
I answered, annoyed. "I deny, however, that I have ever acted in opposition to your interests. During these past weeks of anxiety and suspicion I have always defended you, and show my readiness to still do so by contriving your escape thus far."
"Bah! What have I to fear?" he exclaimed, turning on me defiantly.
I looked straight into his face, and with sternness said--"You fear arrest for the murder of Gilbert Sternroyd." He frowned, and his eyes were downcast. There was a long silence, but no answer pa.s.sed his tight-drawn lips. Presently I spoke again, saying--
"Now listen, Bethune. We have been friends, and I regret to the bottom of my heart that it is no longer possible under these circ.u.mstances to again extend to you the hand of friendship."
"I don"t want it," he growled. "I tell you plainly that you are my enemy--not my friend."
"I have never been your enemy. It is true that the police of Europe are searching for you; that your description is in the hands of every official charged with criminal investigation from Christiania to Gibraltar, and that the charge against you is that you murdered a young millionaire. It is true also that it lays in my power to shield or to denounce you. Think, think for a moment the nature of the evidence against you. One night I entered your flat with my key, stumbled across something, and discovered to my horror that it was the body of Sternroyd, who had been shot."
"You lie!" he cried, turning upon me fiercely, with clenched fists.
"You lie! you never saw the body!"