said Gedge. "Only I don"t know whether I"ll go so far as to oblige you.
Anyhow you may have discovered that I don"t particularly care about your cla.s.s. I"ve been preaching against your idleness and vanity and vices, and the strangling grip you have on the throats of the people, ever since I was a young man. If one of your lot chose to do in another of your lot--a common story of seduction and crime--"
At this slur in his daughter"s honour Sir Anthony broke out fiercely, and, for a moment, I feared lest he would throw himself on Gedge and wring his neck. I managed to check his outburst and bring him to reason. He resumed his att.i.tude on the hearthrug.
"As I was saying," Gedge continued, rather frightened, "from my sociological point of view I considered the affair no business of mine.
I speak of it now, because ever since war broke out your cla.s.s and the parasitical bourgeoisie have done your best to reduce me to starvation.
I thought it would be pleasant to get a bit of my own back. Just a little bit," he added, rubbing his hands.
"If you think you"ve done it, you"ll find yourself mistaken."
Gedge shrugged his shoulders and pulled his beard. I hated the light in his little crafty eyes. I feel sure he had been looking forward for months to this moment of pure happiness.
"Having given us an insight into your motives, which seem consistent with what we know of your character," said I, judicially, "will you now make your statement of facts?"
"What"s the good of listening further to his lies?" interrupted Sir Anthony. "I"m a magistrate. I can give the police at once a warrant for his arrest."
Again I pacified him. "Let us hear what the man has to say."
Gedge began. He spoke by the book, like one who repeats a statement carefully prepared.
"It was past ten o"clock on the night of the 25th June, 1914. I had just finished supper when I was rung up by the landlord of The Three Feathers on the Farfield road--it"s the inn about a quarter of a mile from the lock gates. He said that the District Secretary of the Red Democratic Federation was staying there--his brother-in-law, if you want to know--and he hadn"t received my report. I must explain that I am the local secretary, and as there was to be an important conference of the Federation at Derby the next day, the District Secretary ought to have been in possession of my report on local affairs. I had drawn up the report. My daughter Phyllis had typed it, and she ought to have posted it. On questioning her, I found she had neglected to do so. I explained this over the wires and said I would bring the report at once to The Three Feathers. I only tell you all this, in which you can"t be interested, so that you can"t say: "What were you doing on a lonely road at that time of night?" My daughter and the landlord of The Three Feathers can corroborate this part of my story. I set out on my bicycle. It was bright moonlight. You know that for about two hundred yards before the lock gate, and for about twenty after, the towing-path is raised above the level of the main road which runs parallel with it a few yards away. There are strips of market garden between. When I got to this open bit I saw two persons up on the towing-path. One was a girl with a loose kind of cloak and a hat. The other was a man wearing a soft felt hat and a light overcoat. The overcoat was open and I saw that he was wearing it over evening dress. That caught my attention.
What was this swell in evening dress doing there with a girl? I slowed down and dismounted. They didn"t see me. I got into the shadow of a whitethorn. They turned their faces so that the moon beat full on them.
I saw them as plain as I see you. They were Colonel Boyce, V.C.,--Major then--and your daughter, Mr. Mayor, Miss Althea Fenimore."
He paused as though to point the dramatic effect, and twisted round, sticking out his horrible beard at Sir Anthony. Sir Anthony, his hands thrust deep in his trouser-pockets and his bullet head bent forward, glared at him balefully out of his old blue eyes. But he said never a word. Gedge continued.
"They didn"t speak very loud, so I could only hear a sc.r.a.p or two of their conversation. They seemed to be quarrelling--she wanted him to do something which he wouldn"t do. I heard the words "marriage" and "disgrace." They stood still for a moment. Then they turned back. I had overtaken them, you know. I remounted my bicycle and rode to The Three Feathers. I was there about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.
Then I rode back for home. When I came in sight of the lock, there I saw a man standing alone, sharp in the moonlight. As I came nearer I recognised the same man, Major Boyce. There were no lights in the lock-keeper"s cottage. He and his wife had gone to bed long before. I was so interested that I forgot what I was doing and ran into the hedge so that I nearly came down. There was the noise of the sc.r.a.pe and drag of the machine which must have sounded very loud in the stillness. It startled him, for he looked all round, but he didn"t see me, for I was under the hedge. Then suddenly he started running. He ran as if the devil was after him. I saw him squash down his Trilby hat so that it was shapeless. Then he disappeared along the path. I thought this a queer proceeding. Why should he have taken to his heels? I thought I should like to see him again. If he kept to the towing-path, his shortest way home, he was bound to go along the Chestnut Avenue, where, as you know, the road and the path again come together. On a bicycle it was easy to get there before him. I sat down on a bench and waited.
Presently he comes, walking fast, his hat still squashed in all over his ears. I walked my bicycle slap in front of him.
""Good-night, Major," I said.
"He stared at me as if he didn"t know me. Then he seemed to pull himself together and said: "Good-night, Gedge. What are you doing out at this time of night?"
""If it comes to that, sir," said I, "what are you?"
"Then he says, very haughty, as if I was the dirt under his feet--I suppose, Sir Anthony Fenimore and Major Meredyth, you think that me and my cla.s.s are by divine prescription the dirt beneath your feet, but you"re d.a.m.n well mistaken--then he says: "What the devil do you mean?"
and catches hold of the front wheel of the bicycle and swings it and me out of his way so that I had a nasty fall, with the machine on top of me, and he marches off. I picked myself up furious with anger. I am an elderly man and not accustomed to that sort of treatment. I yelled out: "What have you been doing with the Squire"s daughter on the towing-path?" It pulled him up short. He made a step or two towards me, and again he asked me what I meant. And this time I told him. He called me a liar, swore he had never been on any tow-path or had seen any squire"s daughter, and threatened to murder me. As soon as I could mount my bicycle I left him and made for home. The next afternoon, if you remember, the unfortunate young lady"s body was found at the bottom of three fathoms of water by the lock gates."
He had spoken so clearly, so unfalteringly, that Sir Anthony had been surprised into listening without interruption. The bull-dog expression on his face never changed. When Gedge had come to the end, he said:
"Will you again tell me your object in coming to me with this disgusting story?"
Gedge lifted his bushy eyebrows. "Don"t you believe it even now?"
"Not a word of it," replied Sir Anthony.
"I ought to remind you of another point." said Gedge. "Was Major Boyce ever seen in Wellingsford after that night? No. He went off by the first train the next morning. Went abroad and stayed there till the outbreak of war."
"I happen to know he had made arrangements to start for Norway that morning," said Sir Anthony. "He had called here a day or two before to say good-bye."
"Did he write you any letter of condolence?" Gedge asked sneeringly.
I saw a sudden spasm pa.s.s over Sir Anthony"s features. But he said in the same tone as before:
"I am not going to answer insolent questions."
Gedge turned to me with the air of a man giving up argument with a child.
"What do you think of it, Major Meredyth?"
What could I say? I had kept a grim iron face all through the proceedings. I could only reply:
"I agree entirely with Sir Anthony."
Gedge rose and thrust his hand into his jacket pocket. "You gentlemen are hard to convince. If you want proof positive, just read that." And he held a letter out to Sir Anthony.
Sir Anthony glared at him and abruptly plucked the letter out of his hand; for the fraction of a second he stood irresolute; then he threw it behind him into the blazing fire.
"Do you think I"m going to soil my mind with your dirty forgeries?"
Gedge laughed. "You think you"ve queered my pitch, I suppose. You haven"t. I"ve heaps more incriminating letters. That was only a sample."
"Publish one of them at your peril," said I.
"Pray, Mister Major Meredyth," said he, "what is to prevent me?"
"Penal servitude for malicious slander."
"I should win my case."
"In that event they would get you, on your own showing, for being an accessory after the fact of murder, and for blackmail."
"Suppose I risk it?"
"You won"t," said I.
Sir Anthony turned to the bell-push by the side of the mantelpiece.
"What"s the good of talking to this double-dyed scoundrel?" He pointed to the door. "You infamous liar, get out. And if I ever catch you prowling round this house, I"ll set the dogs on you."
Gedge marched to the door and turned on the threshold and shook his fist.
"You"ll repent your folly till your dying day!"
"To h.e.l.l with you," cried Sir Anthony.
The door slammed. We were left alone. An avalanche of silence overwhelmed us. Heaven knows how long we remained speechless and motionless--I in my wheel-chair, he standing on the hearthrug staring awfully in front of him. At last he drew a deep breath and threw up his arms and flung himself down on a leather-covered couch, where he sat, elbows on knees and his head in his hands. After a while he lifted a drawn face.