But as I leaned nearer, there pierced sharp as a pang to my heart the certainty that the other voice which I heard was not that of any of the characters of _Julius Caesar_. A trembling horror of what I had once seen in that very room, and a memory of the great hearty Richard Poole entering there in all his amplitude of vivid life, quickly arrested me.
I rapped and called vehemently, trying the latch and feeling that the door resisted. I could hear a trampling beneath me. Men were on the way to my a.s.sistance. At the door I sprang. The bolts were as old as the door, and the nails of the lintel fastening only knocked in after its former rough handling.
I got one waft of light as the door opened, half from the candle on the table, half from the moonlight falling dim without. I saw something that crouched--manlike indeed, but with bearded face and head held between its shoulders--leap from the window into the darkness. I did not see Louis clearly. His head was lying on the table, and immediately all the circ.u.mstances of the former drama came back to me. But this time I wasted no time. Something glittered on the table, hilt towards me--knife or sword, I hardly knew which. I only knew that with it in my hand I was armed. I sprang through the window and gave chase.
Then very loud in my ears I heard the crack of a pistol, but felt no wound. I now think it had not even been fired at me. I pursued with the energy of a young stag. My mornings on the hills with Eben looking for the sheep now stood me in good stead--that is, good or bad according as to whether the man in front of me had another loaded pistol ready or not.
Behind me, but alas, too far to be any help, I could hear the shouting of men. Heathknowes was alarmed. Then came the pounding of feet, but I knew that none of them could run with me, while the thing or man in front proved fresher, and, as I feared at first, fleeter.
But, after all, I was young, and though I panted, and had a burning pain in my side, I held to it till I began to get my second wind. Then I made sure that, barring accidents, I could run him down. What should happen then I did not know. I had a vision, only for a moment but yet very clear and distinct, of Irma in the black gown of a young widow. But even this did not make me slacken in my stride.
Somehow the shine of the steel in my hand gave me courage, as also the crying of the men behind, albeit they did not seem to gain but rather to lose ground. Thirty yards ahead I could see my man running, his head very low, his arms close to his sides, a slender figure with a certain look of deformity. A long beard of some indeterminate colour like hay was blown back over one shoulder. Ever and anon he glanced round as he ran to measure my progress.
Suddenly the root of a tree tripped him and he went headlong. But he was agile too, for before I could be upon him, he was up again, and with something that shone like a long thin dagger in his hand, he threw himself upon me as if to take me by surprise. Now, it is very difficult when running hard to put oneself at once into a proper position of defence. And so, as it happened, I was nearly done. But I had been carrying the sword in my hand almost at arm"s length. I was conscious of no shock. Only all suddenly my a.s.sailant doubled and lay writhing, his dagger still shining in his hand.
I stopped and kept wide circling about him, fearing a trick. The moon was shining full on the open clearing of the glade where he had fallen.
It was the little lawyer--he who had called himself Wringham Pollixfen Poole. Yet somehow he was different. His beard had grown to be of a curious foreign fashion and colour--but that perhaps might be the effect of the moonlight.
He never took his eyes off the shining steel in my hand.
"It is poisoned," he groaned, his hand clapped to his breast, "I am a dead man--poisoned, poisoned!"
And looking more carefully at what I had simply s.n.a.t.c.hed in haste, I saw that I had in my hand the golden-hilted sword of honour which Lalor Maitland had given to the boy Louis to seal their friendship.
But immediately a greater wonder oppressed me, and rendered speechless those who now came panting up--my uncles and Boyd Connoway. The hay-coloured beard and disguises came away, s.n.a.t.c.hed off in the man"s death-agony. The shiny brown coat opened to show a spotless ruffled shirt beneath. The wounded man never ceased to exclaim, "It is poisoned!
It is poisoned! I am a dead man!" The wig fell off, and as life gave place to the stillness of death, out of the lined and twisted lineaments of the half-deformed lawyer Poole emerged the pale, calm, clear-cut features of Lalor Maitland.
CHAPTER XLII
THE PLACE OF DREAMS
The key of the mystery was brought us by one who seemed the most unlikely person in the world, Boyd Connoway.
"And her to come of decent folk down there by Killibegs," he exclaimed in opening the matter; "no rapparees out of Connemara--but O"Neil"s blood to a man, both Bridget and all her kindred before her!"
"What"s the matter now?" said the Fiscal, who with much secret satisfaction had come to have that made plain which had troubled him so sorely before. So Boyd and Jerry brought Bridget Connoway in to the outhouse where the dead man lay.
"Tis all my fault--my fault," wailed Bridget, "yet "twas because him that"s me husband gave me no help with the arning of money to bring up the childer. So I was tempted and took in this man after the Black Smugglers had tried to burn the great house of Marnhoul.
"Well might I think so, indeed, your honours. For wounded the man was right sore, and I nursed him for the sake of the goold he gave me.
Lashin"s of goold, and the like had never been seen in our house since before Boyd Connoway there, that now has the face to call himself a convarted man, was the head of it."
"What did this man call himself?" the Fiscal demanded.
"Sure, he called himself Wringham Pollixfen Poole, my lord, and it was not for me to be disbelievin" him."
"And after, when he was under strong suspicion of having wilfully made away with Mr. Richard Poole of Dumfries, why did you say nothing?"
"Now, your honour," exclaimed Bridget, holding up her hands, "wad I be telling aught like that to bring worse and worse on the head of any man in trouble? If it had been yourself, now, how wad you have liked that, your honour?"
"Leave me alone, Bridget. Answer what you are asked," said the Fiscal; "when did you find out that this man was not what he pretended to be?"
"Is it the name he gave you mean, sorr?" said Bridget.
"Yes," said the Fiscal, watching her.
"Faith, then, just when he towld it me!" was the unexpected answer. And then, moving a little nearer, she added confidentially in the Fiscal"s ear, "Would you have believed yourself, my lord, that a Black Smuggler, newly off the _Golden Hind_, and a shipmate of old d.i.c.k Wilkes, that died under the Wicked Flag, would be likely to give his true name and address?"
"Then, by your story, you never knew that the deceased was in truth Mr.
Lalor Maitland, a member of his Majesty"s present loyal parliament?"
"Faith, as to that, no," said Bridget, "and it"s the saints" own pity, for if I had known that in time--it"s independent I would have been. No more wash-tubs for Bridget Connoway!"
"For shame on you, Bridget, you that are an O"Neil, and the wife of a Connoway!" cried Boyd indignantly.
"And the less you say of that, the better will the b.u.t.ter lie on your bread!" said Bridget, advancing a step towards him threateningly. "Your lordship, hearken to me--not an honest day"s work has that man done from January to December--nay, nor dishonest either, for the matter o"
that! "Tis ashamed of himself he ought to be."
"Well," said the Fiscal, "it is a very good thing for you, Mrs.
Connoway, that young Sir Louis is likely to recover after the knock on the head he got from your friend. But the wonder to me is that you did not speak more plainly when there was a former fatal a.s.sault in the same place."
"Now, I put it to ye, sorr, what was a poor woman like me to know about the affairs of the great, my lord?" said Bridget. "Now, in my country, two gentlemen sit late at the wine, and maybe there"s a little difference of opinion, the cartes, or politics, or a lady--or maybe just a differ for the sake of a differ. And wan gives t"other a skelp on the side of the head, and if the man"s skull"s sound, where"s the harm? "Tis done every day in Donegal and n.o.body a bit the worse! For it"s O"Neil"s country, my lord, and the skulls there are made thicker on purpose--such being the intintion of a merciful providence that created nothing in vain."
"And can you give us no light on why Mr. Lalor Maitland wished harm to Mr. Richard Poole?"
Bridget shook her head slowly.
"Doubtless," she said, ""twas something about property and a la.s.s. For if money"s the root of all evil, as the Book says, sure and t"other--(that"s the woman) is the trunk and branches, the flowers, and the fruit!"
The mystery of the death of Mr. Richard Poole was never wholly cleared up. If anything was found among the private correspondence of the late member of the firm of Smart, Poole and Smart, certainly the firm did not allow it to transpire. It is practically certain that Bridget told all she knew. But, poring over the mystery afterwards, and putting all things carefully together, I became convinced that, under the name of Wringham Pollixfen Poole, Mr. Richard had mixed himself up in some highly treasonable business, which put his life within the power of the informer and traitor Lalor.
Consequently when the latter, an expert in disguises, found it necessary to take refuge with Bridget Connoway after the failure of the attack on Marnhoul, he could not have chosen a safer name or disguise.
Mr. Richard, he knew, could not betray him. If any trouble befell he would come at once and see him. So, in fact, when Richard Poole arrived, he demanded that, by the influence of his firm, the children should be at once returned to his tutelage. That Lalor dreamed of marrying Irma is evident, and what he meant to do with little Louis is equally clear--for his death would leave him heir to the properties.
But Richard proved unexpectedly stubborn. He refused flatly to have anything to do with Lalor"s schemes--whereupon the wild beast in the man broke loose. He struck and escaped. But it was a sudden fit of anger, probably repented of as soon as done, because it rendered unsafe a useful disguise.
In the case of Sir Louis the plot was deeper laid. From the boy"s borrowing of the gun, I believe that Louis had made up his mind to escape with his so-called uncle. But some condition or chance word of Lalor"s had caused a shadow of suspicion to arise in Louis"s mind. He had drawn back at the last moment. Whereupon, exasperated by failure, and possibly shaken by hearing me thundering at the door, Lalor had smitten, just as he had done in the case of Mr. Richard. Happily, however, with less result. The necessary weapon was not to his hand.
The poisoned sword, with which he no doubt expected the boy to play till he p.r.i.c.ked himself, was lying with the handle turned away from him.
At any rate he missed his stroke. But it was only by a hair"s breadth, and had it not been for his own sword and my fleetness of foot, the false Wringham Pollixfen might for the second time have vanished as completely as before, while if Louis had died, no one would have suspected as his murderer a man so important as his Excellency Lalor Maitland, Member of Parliament for the county, and presently carrying out the commission of the lieges within the precincts of the city of Westminster.
As to Sir Louis, it was many months before we could obtain any account of his experiences from him, and even then he shrank from all reference to that night in the Wood Parlour. Indeed, he grew up to be a silent, rather moody young man, and as soon as he could obtain permission from the lawyers he went abroad, where at the University of Heidelberg he settled himself with his books and fencing foils. All this happened ten years ago, yet he manifested not the least desire to come home. His affairs are safe in the hands of the Dumfries lawyers, while my grandfather, not to all appearance aged by a day, cares on the spot for his more immediate concerns. Sir Louis has, however, made Duncan the Second laird of the farm and lands of Heathknowes, on the condition that during the tenancy of my grandfather and grandmother they are to sit rent free. Irma and I are still in the house above the meadows, and Duncan has just begun to attend Dr. Carson at the High School. We have been able to buy the Little White House, and have made many improvements, including a couple of servants" bedrooms. But we were just as happy when I rose to make the fire in the morning, and Mrs.
Pathrick came over early on washing days to "get them clothes out on the line at a respectable hour!"