"What a mess this is," he thought. "What a hash I"ve made of it. What a cruel thing to happen to me. What an awful hole I"ve put myself into."
The train swept onward, and he began to doze. Then after a while he slept and dreamed. He dreamed that he was here in this train, not fettered, but spell-bound, unable to move and hide, only able to understand what was happening and to suffer from his perception of the hideous predicament that he was in. Another train, on another of the four tracks, was racing after this train, was overhauling it, was infallibly catching it. Mysteriously he could see into this following, hunting train--it was a train full of policemen, magistrates, wardens, judges, hangmen: all the offended majesty of the law.
He woke shivering, after this first taste of a murderer"s dreams. His punishment had begun.
It was daylight at Waterloo, and he slunk in terror; but things had to be done. He washed himself as well as he could, took off his dirty canvas, got his bag from the cloak-room and hurried away. No questions were asked, no bones made about giving him a room at a house in Stamford Street; and he at once went to bed and slept profoundly.
When he woke this time he was quite calm, and able to think clearly again.
He went out late in the afternoon, and saw a message for him on newspaper bills: "Fatal Accident to ex-Cabinet Minister." Then, having bought a paper, he read the very brief report of the accident. He stood gasping, and then drew deep breaths. The _Accident_. Oh, the joy of seeing that word! No suspicion so far. It was working out just as one might hope.
And it seemed that his courage, so lamentably shaken, began to return to him. He felt more himself. He marched off to a post office, and sent his telegram to Mavis: "Evening paper says fatal accident to Mr.
Barradine. Is this true?" The main purpose of the telegram was to prove that here he was in London, where he had been last Friday, and where he had remained during all the intervening time; its secondary purpose was to put on record at the earliest possible moment his surprise--surprise so complete that he could scarcely believe the sad news. He gave his utmost care to the wording of the telegram and was satisfied with the result. The turn of words seemed perfectly natural.
Then, having despatched his telegram, he hurried off to call at Mr.
Barradine"s house in Grosvenor Place--to make some anxious inquiries.
There were people at the door, ladies and gentlemen among them, and the servants looked white and agitated as they answered questions.
Dale pushed his way up the steps almost into the hall, acting consternation and grief--the honest, rather rough country fellow, the loyal dependent who forgets his good manners in his sorrow at the death of the chieftain. He would not go away, when the other callers had departed. He told the butler of the services rendered to him by Mr. Barradine. "Not more"n ten days ago."
"Don"t you remember me? I came here to thank him for his kindness."
"Ah, yes," said the agitated butler, "he was a kind gentleman, and no mistake."
"_Kind!_ I should think he was. Well, well!" And Dale stood nodding his head dolefully. Then he went away slowly and sadly, and he kept on nodding his head in the same doleful manner long after the door was shut--just on the chance that the servants might look out of the hail windows and see it before he vanished round the corner.
He could think now, as well as he had ever done. It was of prime importance that no outsiders should ever learn that Everard Barradine had injured him. This guided him henceforth. It settled the course of his life there and then. He must return to Mavis; he must by his demeanor cover the intrigue--or so act that if people came to know of it, they would suppose either that he was ignorant of his shame or that he was a complaisant husband, taking advantage of the situation and pocketing all gifts from his wife"s protector. No motive for the crime. That was his guide-post.
In the night he got rid of the canvas suit and slouch hat. Next day he went home to Rodchurch Post Office, and, speaking to Mavis of Mr.
Barradine"s death, uttered that terrific blasphemy. "_It is the finger of G.o.d._"
x.x.xI
He acted his part well, and everything worked out easily--more easily than one could have dared to hope for.
Not a soul was thinking about him. He had to a.s.sert himself, thrust himself forward, before people in the village would so much as notice that he had come back among them again. The inquest, as he gathered, was going to be a matter of form: it seemed doubtful if the authorities would even make an examination of the ground over there.
All was to be as nice as nice for him.
Yet he was afraid. Fear possed him--this sneaking, torturing, emasculating pa.s.sion that he had never known hitherto was now always with him. He lay alone in the camp-bedstead sweating and funking. The events of the day made him seem safe, but he felt that he would not be really safe for ages and ages. Throughout the night he was going over the list of his idiotic mistakes, upbraiding himself, cursing himself for a hundred acts of brainless folly. The plan had been sound enough: it was the accomplishment of the plan that had been so d.a.m.nably rotten.
Why had he changed his addresses in that preposterous fashion? Instead of providing himself with useful materials for an alibi, he had just made a lot of inexplicable movements. Then the p.a.w.ning of the watch--in a false name. How could he ever explain _that_? Anybody short of money may put his ticker up the spout, but no one has the right to a.s.sume an alias. And the buying of the clothes and hat.
Instead of bargaining, as innocent people do, however small the price demanded, he just dabbed down the money. He must have appeared to be in the devil"s own hurry to get the things and cut off with them. The two men at that shop must have noticed his peculiarities as a customer. They would be able to pick him out in the biggest crowd that ever a.s.sembled in a magistrate"s court.
But far worse had been his watchings and prowlings round and about the house in Grosvenor Place. Could he have blundered upon anything more full of certain peril? Why, to stand still for ten minutes in London is to invite the attention of the police. Their very motto or watchword is "Move on;" and for every policeman in helmet and b.u.t.tons there are three policemen in plain clothes to make sure that people _are_ moving on. While watching that house he had been watched himself.
Then, again, the insane episode of the eating-house--the wild hastening of his program, the untimely change of appearance in that thronged room--and his rudeness to the woman behind the counter. With anguish he remembered, or fancied he remembered, that she had looked at him resentfully seeming to say as she studied his face. "I"m sizing you up. Yes, I won"t forget you--you brute."
His bag too--left by him at Waterloo for a solid proof that he was _not_ in London as he pretended. The bag was at the cloak-room all right when he came to fetch it, but perhaps in the meantime it had been to Scotland Yard and back again. Besides, Waterloo was a station he should never once have showed his nose in; the link between Waterloo and home was too close--his own line--the railway whose staff was replenished by people from his own part of the country. While he was feeling glad that the pa.s.sengers were strangers, perhaps a porter was saying to a mate: "There goes the postmaster of Rodchurch. He and I were boys together. I should know him anywhere, though it"s ten years since I last saw William Dale." He ought to have used Paddington Station--he could have got to Salisbury that way, and gone into the woods the way he came out of them.
Last of all, that child in the glade--a child strayed from one of the cottages, or the child of some woodcutter who had brought her with him, who was perhaps a very little way off, who listened to the tale of what the child had seen five minutes after she had seen it. Of course nothing much would be thought of the child"s tale at first; but it would a.s.sume importance directly suspicion had been aroused; it would link up with other circ.u.mstances, it would suggest new ideas and further researches to the minds of detectives, it might be the clue that eventually hanged him.
It seemed to Dale as he went over things in this quivering, quaking manner that, from the little girl weaving flowers back to the two Jews selling slops, he had recruited an army of witnesses to denounce and destroy him.
Only in one respect had he not bungled. He got rid of the clothes and hat all right. Cut and torn into narrow stripes they had gone comfortably down the drains of the temperance hotel in Stamford Street. That was a night"s wise labor. But the labor and thoughtful care had come too late, on top of all the previous folly.
And he said to himself, "It"s prob"ly all up with me. This quiet is the usual trick of the p"lice to throw you off the scent. They"re playin" wi" me. They let me sim to run free, because they know they can "aarve me when they want me."
With such thoughts, he went down-stairs of a morning to talk jovially with Ridgett, to chaff Miss Yorke; and with the thoughts unchanged he came up-stairs to glower at Mavis across the breakfast-table.
His thoughts in regard to Mavis were extraordinarily complicated. At first he had been horribly afraid of her--dreading their meeting as a crisis, a turning-point, an awful bit of touch-and-go work. It seemed that she of all people would be the one to suspect the truth. When she heard of the man"s death, surely the idea _must_ have flashed into her mind: "This is Will"s doing." But then perhaps, when no facts appeared to support the idea, she might have abandoned it. Nevertheless it would readily come flashing back again--and again, and again.
To his delight, however, he saw that she did not suspect now, and there was nothing to show that she ever had suspected. And he thought in the midst of his great relief: "How stupid she is really. Any other woman would have put two and two together. But she is a stupid woman.
Stupidity is the key-note to her character--and it furnishes the explanation of half her wrong-doing."
This reflection was comforting, but he still considered her to be a source of terrible danger to him. For the moment at least, all his resentment about her past unchasteness and her recent escapade was entirely obliterated; it was a closed chapter; he did not seem to care two pence about it--that is, he did not feel any torment of jealousy.
The offense was expiated. But he must not on any account let her see this--no, because it might lead her, stupid as she was, to trace the reason. He knew himself that if Mr. Barradine had died otherwise than by his blows, he would have felt quite differently toward Mavis. He would have felt then "The swine has escaped me. We are not quits. That dirty turn is not paid for." He would have continued to smart under the affront to his pride as a man, and a.s.sociation with Mavis would have still been impossible.
Logically, then, he must act out these other feelings; Mavis must see him as he would have been under those conditions. But it made it all so difficult--two parts to render adequately instead of one. In the monstrous egotism produced by his fear, he thought it uncommonly rough luck that the wife who ought to have been dutifully a.s.sisting him should thus add to his cares and worries. Sometimes he had to struggle against insane longings to take her into his confidence, and compel her to do her fair share of the job--to say, slap out, "It"s you, my lady, who"ve landed me in this tight place; so the least you can do is to help pull me into open country."
Moreover, as the days and nights pa.s.sed, instincts that were more human and natural made him crave for re-union. He yearned to be friends with her again. He felt that if he could safely make it up, cuddle her as he used to do, hold her hands and arms when he went to sleep, he would derive fort.i.tude and support against his fear, even if he obtained no aid from her in dodging the law.
He thought during the inquest that the fear had reached its climax.
Nothing that could come in the future would be as bad as this. Yet all the time he was telling himself, "There is no cause for the fear. It is quite baseless. All is going as nice as nice."
Indeed, if he had conducted the proceedings himself, he could not have wished to arrange anything differently. The whole affair was more like a civilian funeral service--a rite supplemental to the church funeral--than a businesslike inquiry into the circ.u.mstances and occasion of a person"s death. A sergeant and constable were present, but apparently for no reason whatever. Allen talked nonsense, grooms and servants talked nonsense, everybody paid compliments to the deceased--and really that was all. At last Mr. Hollis, the coroner, said the very words that Dale would have liked to put into his mouth--something to the effect that they had done their melancholy duty and that it would be useless to ask any more questions.
But Dale, sitting firmly and staring gloomily, felt an internal paroxysm of terror. Near the lofty doors of the fine state room common folk stood whispering and nudging one another--cottagers, carters, woodcutters; and Dale thought "Now I"m in for it. One of those chaps is going to come forward and tell the coroner that his little girl saw a strange man in the wood." He imagined it all so strongly that it almost seemed to happen. "Beg pardon, your honor, I don"t rightly know as, it"s wuth mentionin", but my lil" young "un see"d a scarecrow sort of a feller not far from they rocks, the mornin" afore."
It did not, however, happen. Nothing happened.
And nothing happened when he came to the Abbey again to attend the real burial service--except that he found how wrong he had been in supposing that the fear had reached its highest point. He nearly fainted when he saw all those policemen--the entire park seeming to be full of them, a blue helmet under every tree, a glittering line of b.u.t.tons that stretched through the courtyards and right round the church. Inside the church he said to himself, "They"ve got me now.
They"ll tap me on the shoulder as I come out."
Standing in the open air again he wondered at the respite that had been allowed, and thought, "Yes, but that is always their way. They never show their hand until they have collected all the evidence. The detectives, who"ve been on my track from the word "go," prob"ly advised the relatives to accept the thing as an accident in order to hoodwink the murderer. The tip was given to that coroner not to probe deep, because they weren"t ready yet with their case;" and it suddenly occurred to him that he had left deep footsteps in the wood, and that plaster casts had been made of all these impressions.
He looked across a gravestone in the crowded churchyard and saw a strange man who was staring at the ground. A detective? He believed that this man was watching his feet, measuring them, saying to himself, "Yes, those are the feet that will fit my plaster cast."
After the funeral he began to grow calmer, and soon he was able to believe during long periods of each day that the most considerable risks were now over.
Then came news of the legacy to Mavis--the cursed money that he hated, that threw him back into the earlier distress concerning his wife"s shame, that restored vividness to the thoughts which had faded in presence of the one overpowering thought of his own imminent peril.
But here again he was governed by what he had set before himself as his unfailing guide-post--the necessity to conceal any motive for an act of vengeance. What would people think if he refused the money? It was a question not easy to answer, and the guide-post seemed to point in two opposite directions. He was hara.s.sed by terrible doubt until he and Mavis went to see the solicitor at Old Manninglea. During the conversation over there he a.s.sured himself that the solicitor saw nothing odd in the legacy, and made no guess at there having been an intrigue between Mavis and the benefactor; and further he ascertained that this was only one of several similar legacies. All was clear then: the guide-post pointed one way now: they must take the money.
But this necessity shook Dale badly again. It seemed as if the man so tightly put away in his lead coffin and stone vault was not done with yet. It was as if one could never be free from his influence, as if, dead or alive, he exercised power over one. Dale resisted such superst.i.tious fancies in vain. They upset him; and the fear returned, bigger than before.