"Perfectly right," Captain Palliser agreed with him, "but it is lapse of time which may mean life or death to Jem Temple Barholm; so it"s perhaps as well to be on the safe side and go on quietly following small clues. I dare say you would feel more comfortable yourselves."
Both Mr. Palford and Mr. Grimby, having made an appointment with Miss Alicia, arrived one afternoon at Temple Barholm to talk to her privately, thereby casting her into a state of agonized anxiety which reduced her to pallor.
"Our visit is merely one of inquiry, Miss Temple Barholm," Mr. Palford began. "There is perhaps nothing alarming in our client"s absence."
"In the note which he left me he asked me to--feel no anxiety," Miss Alicia said.
"He left you a note of explanation? I wish we had known this earlier!"
Mr. Palford"s tone had the note of relieved exclamation. Perhaps there was an entirely simple solution of the painful difficulty.
But his hope had been too sanguine.
"It was not a note of explanation, exactly. He went away too suddenly to have time to explain."
The two men looked at each other disturbedly.
"He had not mentioned to you his intention of going?" asked Mr.
Grimby.
"I feel sure he did not know he was going when he said good-night. He remained with Captain Palliser talking for some time." Miss Alicia"s eyes held wavering and anxious question as she looked from one to the other. She wondered how much more than herself her visitors knew. "He found a telegram when he went to his room. It contained most disquieting news about Mr. Strangeways. He--he had got away from the place where--"
"Got away!" Mr. Palford was again exclamatory. "Was he in some inst.i.tution where he was kept under restraint?"
Miss Alicia was wholly unable to explain to herself why some quality in his manner filled her with sudden distress.
"Oh, I think not! Surely not! Surely nothing of that sort was necessary. He was very quiet always, and he was getting better every day. But it was important that he should be watched over. He was no doubt under the care of a physician in some quiet sanatorium."
"Some quiet sanatorium!" Mr. Palford"s disturbance of mind was manifest. "But you did not know where?"
"No. Indeed, Mr. Temple Barholm talked very little of Mr. Strangeways.
I believe he knew that it distressed me to feel that I could be of no real a.s.sistance as--as the case was so peculiar."
Each perturbed solicitor looked again with rapid question at the other. Miss Alicia saw the exchange of glances and, so to speak, broke down under the pressure of their unconcealed anxiety. The last few weeks with their suggestion of accusation too vague to be met had been too much for her.
"I am afraid--I feel sure you know something I do not," she began. "I am most anxious and unhappy. I have not liked to ask questions, because that would have seemed to imply a doubt of Mr. Temple Barholm.
I have even remained at home because I did not wish to hear things I could not understand. I do not know what has been said. Pearson, in whom I have the greatest confidence, felt that Mr. Temple Barholm would prefer that I should wait until he returned."
"Do you think he will return?" said Mr. Grimby, amazedly.
"Oh!" the gentle creature e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Can you possibly think he will not? Why? Why?"
Mr. Palford had shared his partner"s amazement. It was obvious that she was as ignorant as a babe of the details of Palliser"s extraordinary story. In her affectionate consideration for Temple Barholm she had actually shut herself up lest she should hear anything said against him which she could not refute. She stood innocently obedient to his wishes, like the boy upon the burning deck, awaiting his return and his version of whatsoever he had been accused of. There was something delicately heroic in the little, slender old thing, with her troubled eyes and her cap and her quivering sideringlets.
"You," she appealed, "are his legal advisers, and will be able to tell me if there is anything he would wish me to know. I could not allow myself to listen to villagers or servants; but I may ask you."
"We are far from knowing as much as we desire to know," Mr. Palford replied.
"We came here, in fact," added Grimby, "to ask questions of you, Miss Temple Barholm."
"The fact that Miss Temple Barholm has not allowed herself to be prejudiced by village gossip, which is invariably largely unreliable, will make her an excellent witness," Mr. Palford said to his partner, with a deliberation which held suggestive significance. Each man, in fact, had suddenly realized that her ignorance would leave her absolutely unbiased in her answers to any questions they might put, and that it was much better in cross-examining an emotional elderly lady that such should be the case.
"Witness!" Miss Alicia found the word alarming. Mr. Palford"s bow was apologetically palliative.
"A mere figure of speech, madam," he said.
"I really know so little every one else doesn"t know." Miss Alicia"s protest had a touch of bewilderment in it. What could they wish to ask her?
"But, as we understand it, your relations with Mr. Temple Barholm were most affectionate and confidential."
"We were very fond of each other," she answered.
"For that reason he no doubt talked to you more freely than to other people," Mr. Grimby put it. "Perhaps, Palford, it would be as well to explain to Miss Temple Barholm that a curious feature of this matter is that it--in a way--involves certain points concerning the late Mr.
Temple Barholm."
Miss Alicia uttered a pathetic exclamation.
"Poor Jem--who died so cruelly!"
Mr. Palford bent his head in acquiescence.
"Perhaps you can tell me what the present Mr. Temple Barholm knew of him--how much he knew?"
"I told him the whole story the first time we took tea together," Miss Alicia replied; and, between her recollection of that strangely happy afternoon and her wonder at its connection with the present moment, she began to feel timid and uncertain.
"How did it seem to impress him?"
She remembered it all so well--his queer, dear New York way of expressing his warm-hearted indignation at the cruelty of what had happened.
"Oh, he was very much excited. He was so sorry for him. He wanted to know everything about him. He asked me what he looked like."
"Oh!" said Palford. "He wanted to know that?"
"He was so full of sympathy," she replied, her explanation gaining warmth. "When I told him that the picture of Miles Hugo in the gallery was said to look like Jem as a boy, he wanted very much to see it.
Afterward we went and saw it together. I shall always remember how he stood and looked at it. Most young men would not have cared. But he always had such a touching interest in poor Jem."
"You mean that he asked questions about him--about his death, and so forth?" was Mr. Palford"s inquiry.
"About all that concerned him. He was interested especially in his looks and manner of speaking and personality, so to speak. And in the awful accident which ended his life, though he would not let me talk about that after he had asked his first questions."
"What kind of questions?" suggested Grimby.
"Only about what was known of the time and place, and how the sad story reached England. It used to touch me to think that the only person who seemed to care was the one who --might have been expected to be almost glad the tragic thing had happened. But he was not."
Mr. Palford watched Mr. Grimby, and Mr. Grimby gave more than one dubious and distressed glance at Palford.
"His interest was evident," remarked Palford, thoughtfully. "And unusual under the circ.u.mstances."
For a moment he hesitated, then put another question: "Did he ever seem--I should say, do you remember any occasion when he appeared to think that--there might be any reason to doubt that Mr. James Temple Barholm was one of the men who died in the Klondike?"