Kitabı oku: «Tinman», sayfa 17

CHAPTER XI
I Tell the Truth

My first thought, after that ghastly discovery, was to run to the outer door and close it. After that, the mere coming back into the room was an effort; I was afraid of that grim thing lying there, stark and still, with the knife sticking in its breast – afraid most of all of what it suggested.

For I saw now that a hatred greater and deeper than mine had pursued this man, and had struck him down before my slower vengeance could reach him. As I stood in the room, in that silence greater than any silence I had known before, I realized that all that I had feared, and all that I had fought against had happened, after all: the boy had been here before me, and had struck down his enemy. There was no doubt about that at all: all the precautions Murray Olivant had taken had availed him nothing. Surely and resolutely young Arnold Millard had tracked him down, and had killed him, as he had sworn to do.

I stood there by the table for what seemed a long time, wondering what I should do. For now the instinct to cover up this crime was stronger in me than it would have been had the man been struck down by my own hands. In a pitiful fashion I knew the business, and had paid the penalty of it before; I should have gone into it, and indeed had meant to go into it, with my eyes open, knowing well the desperate risk I ran. But with the boy it was different; he was only poor Charlie Avaline again, of twenty years before, who had flung himself upon this man in sheer bitter rage, and without thought of what he must pay for the blow.

I looked about the room. A chair had been overturned, and I guessed that Murray Olivant had made something of a struggle with his murderer, but had had no chance really to defend himself. The candle I had seen knocked over seemed to suggest that the man who had struck the blow had knocked over the light, in sheer horror of that dying face staring up at him: that seemed natural enough. There was nothing else disturbed; a glass upon the table held a little whisky and soda still, and on the rim of it were to be seen the impression of the lips of the drinker. The cigar that had burnt its way into the table-cloth had long since gone out. The whole place was unnaturally still.

I stood there looking down at the dead man; for if the truth be told I dared not put the table between us; there was an uncanny feeling in me that he might stir, and get up, and come towards me – dead, and yet moving – with that knife sticking out of him. I kept near him, that I might be sure where he was, and above all that he was still. And I began to calculate the chances again – not for myself this time, but for the boy.

For in this, of course, I had the advantage of a dreadful experience. I seemed to know that Arnold Millard would strike down his man without fear of any consequences – without thought of any penalty he might have to pay. That done, he would walk out of the place, and would take his way through the streets, not caring greatly what happened to him. I had done that, ever so many years before; and therein I had been mistaken. I had walked straight into the arms of those who waited for me; I had not cared. But this boy must care; in a sense, he must be saved from himself. There was no one now that could guide him out of the labyrinth into which he had gone but myself; I only knew where the hammers were going, and where the scaffold was being built, with its black arm pointing to the grave; I only could meet him on that road, and from bitter experience turn him aside, and show him another secret road to travel – a road by which he might escape. I blessed God for my knowledge then.

In the dread silence of the room I found myself addressing the dead man; leaning over the table to look down at him fearfully, as though he could hear me.

"It may be that you will save him, after all," I whispered. "You have hidden yourself here – you are an unknown man; they cannot find out anything about you. If he is silent, it may happen that no one will ever suspect. But will he be silent? – that is the point. Or will he feel, in a cooler moment, that this deed cuts him off for ever from those for whose sake it was done. What will he do?"

Once again I found myself counting and calculating the chances – not for myself, but for another this time. In some strange fashion the boy must have tracked Murray Olivant to this place; must have struck him down; and must now be wandering, with that brand of Cain upon him, fighting the desperate battle with himself that a man must fight who has in one moment put himself outside the sphere of ordinary things; and so is hiding and dodging in a crowded world to escape.

I remembered that certain steamer tickets had been bought, in order to carry out that deception which had after all been useless; I knew that those tickets must be in the possession of the dead man. With the cowardice of one who puts off what he knows to be inevitable until the last moment, I searched everywhere for them about the room – looking on the mantelshelf, and in a small new portmanteau in the inner room – everywhere but where I knew instinctively they must be. Then at last, when there was nothing else to be done, I turned to the man himself, and knelt beside him.

Even as I did so I raised my head, and listened. The night was very still and windless; there was not a sound anywhere about the house. But I had distinctly heard the scrape of a footstep on the landing outside – that, and the movement of some one against the door. I got up very slowly and stealthily from my knees, and suddenly blew out the candle; then I felt my way to the door of the room, and stood listening again.

There was a small lobby outside this room, and at the further side of it the door leading to the staircase. While I stood there, I distinctly heard some one pressing against the door: heard the heavy breathing of some one who was evidently striving to peer through the keyhole. I stood perfectly still in the darkness, and listened; heard cautious footsteps moving away from the door, and then with greater confidence going more loudly down the stairs. And I knew instinctively that the murderer had been there, and had gone away again.

There had been a sudden thought in my mind for a moment that I would follow him; would overtake him, and so, coming face to face with him, make him understand that I knew the truth. With that understanding there might have come the knowledge that I was his friend, who had suffered just as he must be suffering now, and who was ready and willing to help him. But that thought was gone as quickly as it had come; I felt that I should only be met with furious denials; I knew that I must keep my knowledge to myself for the present.

It was difficult work going back into that room, and standing there fumbling to get a light. But I accomplished it at last, and once more went upon my knees beside the dead man, and began to fumble dreadfully in his pockets for the tickets. They were easily found, because the man seemed to have nothing else of any value in his pockets at all; he had carried out what he had promised, in that he had destroyed all marks of identification. So with the tickets in my hand I sat down on a chair (still keeping him well in view, lest he should dreadfully come to life again), and thought about what I had to do.

I fitted the thing together like a puzzle. Murray Olivant on the sea, on board the Eaglet; Murray Olivant so far accounted for, for some considerable time at least. On the other hand, Murray Olivant here as an unknown man – dead by an unknown hand. The first thing to be done obviously was to get rid of the tickets. For the present I thrust them into my own pocket, meaning to destroy them at the first opportunity.

Then I went carefully through the rooms, to be certain that there was nothing by which Olivant could be identified. I found, as I had expected, that there was no scrap of clothing anywhere that was marked; everything was of that newer cheaper kind that he had purchased for the better carrying out of his trick. I had left the most dreadful task to the last; and that was to examine the knife.

I had not the courage to pull it out; I took the candle from the table, and bent down to examine it. It was a knife not unlike that which I carried; it had been well worn, but was a powerful weapon, of the sort carried by sailors. I looked at it carefully, and was relieved to find that there were no distinguishing marks upon the handle: it was a common thing, such as the boy might have bought for a few shillings, just as I had bought the one that was slung about my waist.

I had done all that it was possible for me to do, and I now prepared for departure. I extinguished the candle, and got to the door; stood listening for a moment, in the fear that that visitor of a little time before might have returned, and might be waiting. But there was no sound, and after a moment or two I opened the door, and peered out. No one there, and the house wrapped in silence.

Emboldened by that, I pulled the door wide, and stepped out, and closed it behind me. I turned to put my hand against it, to be certain that it was fastened, and recoiled with a cry. For there was a man standing there, flat against the wall at one side of the door, looking at me. It was Jervis Fanshawe.

"What – what's the matter?" I asked hoarsely.

He grinned at me; his voice when he spoke was the mere thread of a whisper. "Nothing – nothing at all," he said. "How's our friend?" He jerked his head towards the closed door as he spoke.

"He – he's all right," I faltered, stooping to fumble with the lock for a moment, the better to hide my face. "Tired – gone to sleep."

Jervis Fanshawe moved away from me to the head of the stairs; peered over there down into the darkness below for a moment or two in silence. Then he turned swiftly, and laid his hand on my arm, and without looking at me began to pull me towards the stairs. "Come away," he whispered – "come away!"

I was halfway down the stairs before I realized what he meant, or what he thought. And then in a moment it flashed upon me that he knew in his own mind that Murray Olivant was dead, and believed that I had killed him. I had seen that thought growing in his mind when he had spoken to me about what my feelings must have been when I had killed Gavin Hockley; I knew now that the man was absolutely certain as to what had happened, and that he had fastened the crime upon me. For a moment I stopped on the stairs, and looked at him with a momentary feeling of dismay in my heart – momentary only, because the next instant I realized that this was, after all, the best thing that could happen. He might say or do anything, so far as I was concerned; it would be like flogging a dead man; my only dread had been that he might fasten the crime upon the right pair of shoulders.

"Why do you stare at me like that?" I asked.

"Was I staring?" he asked, with that grin again stealing over his features. "I was only thinking," he added; and then, dropping his voice to a whisper, he asked, as he glanced up the stairs towards the door we had left: "Tell me – does he sleep soundly?"

"I suppose so," I said hoarsely; and turned and went down the stairs, with Fanshawe following. He spoke no further words; as I strode on through the streets he came after me at a sort of trot – ever keeping a little behind me and at my elbow.

Knowing what I knew, and guessing that he had put that fearful interpretation upon my words, I found him presently to be a very ghost of a man, coming along always with that soft footfall just behind me. Once or twice I stopped on some pretext; but he always stopped too, and would not be shaken off. And so at last we came to that lodging down by the river, and were admitted by the girl Moggs. While we stood for a moment in the little dingy passage of the house, the girl jerked her head towards the stairs, and said, without looking at us —

"'E's up there."

Then she disappeared into her own quarters. I could not understand what she meant; I was puzzling my brains to know who could possibly have called upon us, or what fresh disaster this might mean, when I became aware of a sudden change that had come over my companion. He was leaning against the wall, mouthing and shivering, and plucking at his lips, and staring towards the staircase. I looked back at him, and called —

"What's wrong with you? What are you afraid of?"

He came towards me, edging along the wall of the passage until he could lay his hand upon mine and grip me. "Didn't you hear what she said?" he whispered. "He's up there – waiting for us! Don't you understand, you fool, that he'd come quicker than we could; didn't you think of that?"

The sheer terror in the man's face unnerved me; I found myself gripping him, as if I, too, had suddenly grown afraid.

"What the devil do you mean?" I whispered. "It's some chance caller. Don't be a fool!"

I was shaken to my very soul; but I went on up the stairs, looking back, to find him following more slowly. I saw that he was ready, at a chance word or gesture, to go tumbling down the stairs again, and screaming out into the night. I hesitated for a moment at the door of the room, and opened it, and went in. Standing before the cheerless hearth was the man Dawkins.

I glanced over my shoulder, to see a ghastly face coming round the door – a face that changed in a moment from terror to relief – from relief to a sort of childish rage. Jervis Fanshawe came into the room a little blusteringly, and scowled at the visitor.

"What do you want here at this time of night?" he demanded. "Startling people – and making them think – What do you want?"

Dawkins stared at this hitherto humble man in some amazement. "Don't be insolent," he said at last. "I want to find Murray Olivant."

"What do you want with him?" snapped Jervis Fanshawe, before I could say a word. "And why do you seek him here?"

"Because I can't find him at his rooms," retorted Dawkins. "The place is shut up, and apparently deserted; even his servant has gone. What's the mystery?"

"There is no mystery," I said slowly. "Mr. Murray Olivant has gone on a voyage – "

"Yes, yes; on a voyage," corroborated Fanshawe eagerly. "That's true enough."

"He sails to-morrow on the Eaglet, bound for the Mediterranean," I went on. "I am to join him – to sail with him."

"Strange that I've heard nothing about it," muttered Dawkins, looking from one to the other of us. "I think I can guess what has happened, however; our friend has got hold of the girl, and is slipping away quietly with her – eh?"

"I couldn't say," said Fanshawe. "In any case, I wouldn't trouble about it, if I were you; it's not worth while."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Dawkins, with a grin. "Murray Olivant mustn't imagine for a moment that he is going to use me as he likes, and then fling me aside, without so much as a 'Thank you.' I don't believe in this sailing business; I don't believe he's going at all. There's some trick in this."

"There's no trick," exclaimed Fanshawe eagerly. "He sails to-morrow, and Tinman here goes with him."

I confess I was a little surprised at this eager advocacy of my cause on the part of Fanshawe; I could not understand it. I firmly believed that he thought I had killed the man Olivant; but I should have imagined he was the last person to endeavour to shield me. Yet here he was carrying on that trick that had been practised on every one, and assisting me to hide Murray Olivant away. I could not understand it.

"Tell me one thing," persisted Dawkins. "Does he take the girl with him?"

I answered immediately: "No; he does not take her. He does not even know where she is, and he has decided to give up the whole business."

"I can't understand it, and I don't believe it," said Dawkins, moving towards the door. "You're hiding something from me."

I slipped my hand into my pocket, and drew out the envelope containing the steamer tickets. Without a word I pulled out the tickets, and showed them to him. "I am to meet my master early to-morrow morning with these, and to take him on board. Does that convince you?"

He looked at the tickets and at me; something in my manner evidently impressed him. "Well," he said, "it's no affair of mine – and he was always an erratic sort of fellow. But why couldn't he have let me know that he was going?"

"You forget," I reminded him, "that you have been endeavouring to get a large sum of money out of him."

"There's something in that," he replied, with a laugh. "I don't like being made a fool of; I hope the infernal vessel will blow up, or sink, or something, with the pair of you on board."

"Thank you, sir," I responded quietly, as he went out, slamming the door after him.

Jervis Fanshawe was seated on the bed, rubbing his hands, and laughing softly to himself. "That was well done, Charlie; that was excellently done," he said, in a hoarse whisper. "You're a clever fellow, Charlie; you've covered up the traces beautifully."

"I don't understand you," I replied coldly. "There are no traces to cover up, beyond those we know already. Murray Olivant is in hiding – "

"That's it – in hiding," he whispered, nodding his head many times, and sucking in his lips, and rubbing his long bony hands together. "In hiding's the word. And he'll sleep soundly to-night – won't he, Charlie?"

"I imagine so," I replied, looking at him steadily. "Why do you insist upon that point?"

"Do I insist upon it, Charlie?" he asked innocently. "Not at all – not at all. Only I like to think of him in those snug rooms of his in Lincoln's Inn Fields – sleeping well – sleeping as long as he likes, Charlie – eh?"

There was that between us which seemed to make it necessary that my eyes should seek his, and that his should be fastened on mine. Even when I moved round the room, I saw that his eyes followed me. And I knew what was in his mind. I would not trust him; I would never trust him again; for the sake of the boy who had done this thing in a moment of madness, I must let Fanshawe think what he would.

"We'd better sleep," I said, as I turned the key in the door. "And, as for Murray Olivant – let him sleep."

"Quite right, Charlie – we can leave him – to sleep soundly," he said, nodding his head at me. "He's safe enough."

He stretched himself on the bed, and seemed to fall asleep at once. I had curled myself up in a corner, and was slowly nodding to slumber, when I thought he moved; I asked sleepily if he wanted anything. There was no reply, and the only sound in the room was his steady breathing. I decided sleepily that everything might well wait until the morrow; my head dropped forward on my breast, and I slept heavily.

I had no recollection of anything during the night, save that it seemed to me once that some one touched me, and that I fretfully begged to be left alone. But I awoke in the morning to find the bed unoccupied, and only myself in the room. Fanshawe was gone. I wondered about it a little, and yet was relieved to be rid of him.

I had got clearly in my mind what I was to do. I wanted to know that Barbara and the girl were safe at Hammerstone Market; I wanted to be certain that the girl was back again in her father's house. Always when I got to that point I stopped, and my thoughts refused to travel further. For while Murray Olivant was safely out of the way, never to trouble the child's peace again, there always came on top of that the shuddering remembrance that the boy had killed him, and that only afterwards, if he was the boy I knew him to be, would there come upon him the knowledge that with that knife thrust he had killed not only Murray Olivant, but all hope of any love story with Barbara. That was one of the problems I had to solve; to know what the boy would do.

I was certain in my own mind that Barbara, at least, would keep her promise to me, and would take the girl to Hammerstone Market. It seemed at once to become vitally necessary that I should see Barbara – should let her understand, in however vague a fashion, what had happened, and should get the clear light of her reason upon it. Up to a certain point I had taken my way strongly, without fear and without question; but now I had come to a point when I was afraid to move – afraid to take any step that might involve young Arnold Millard. One man I feared, and feared greatly; and that man was Jervis Fanshawe.

I knew he would not hesitate for a moment to denounce me, if it served his purpose to do so. I knew that he believed that I had killed Murray Olivant, and I did not know how far that old vengeance with which he had pursued me before would stir him to pursue me again. I did not like, above all things, that secret creeping away in the night on some unknown errand.

Not that I feared for myself; but that I thought I knew enough of the boy to know that, if another were threatened with the penalty of his crime, he would not hesitate to step forward and tell the truth. And in that case all that I had striven so hard to do would be lost, and the boy's fate would be that of a certain poor Charlie Avaline, long since forgotten.

I hurried to Barbara's lodging, only to find, as I had anticipated, that she and the girl had gone. From there I went straight to the railway station, and took train for Hammerstone Market – still with that feeling in my mind that I must know, before everything else, what the boy was going to do.

In the train I remembered that the vessel on which Murray Olivant was supposed to sail with me started that morning; I wondered what was going to happen in that direction, or whether it was already known that we had not sailed at all. The thought of that sent my hand to my pocket in search of the tickets; I found that they were gone.

I searched every pocket wildly, striving as I did so to remember exactly when I had had them last, and under what circumstances. I remembered distinctly taking them from the pocket of the dead man and putting them into my own; knew – or thought I knew – that I had had them at the time when Dawkins doubted my statement about Olivant. But had I produced them then for his inspection, or had I merely told him that I had them? I could not be sure of that; I went over and over the conversation of the previous night, only to find myself more and more muddled and vague about it. One dreadful thought came to me: had I by any chance dropped them in that room in Lincoln's Inn Fields where Murray Olivant lay murdered?

I was making my way out of the station, when I felt a quick touch on my arm; I looked round sharply, and saw young Arnold Millard beside me. I suppose my face must have shown in a moment the fear that was in my heart for him, and for his safety; but there was a fine assumption of astonishment in his tones when he spoke to me.

"Why, Tinman, what's the matter with you?" he demanded. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost. What's wrong?"

"What should be wrong, sir?" I asked, as we walked together out of the station. "Have you any news of your brother – of Mr. Olivant?" I looked at him fully, and wondered that his eyes did not shrink from mine.

"The best of news," he exclaimed. "He's shown the white feather, Tinman; he's made up his mind to leave the country. I'm not sorry that he's slipped through my fingers; he wasn't worth killing, was he?"

"No; God knows he wasn't worth killing," I said passionately.

"His flat is shut up, and I'm told he sails this morning; the people in the house even knew the name of the vessel – the Eaglet. I wouldn't believe it at first, but the housekeeper opened the doors for me, and let me go all over the rooms. Everything was packed up or covered up; he's going to be away a long time, I should think."

I wondered how he could lie in such a cheerful fashion; my heart ached at the thought that I had sacrificed myself for such a man as this. Of course, I understood that he had a right to protect himself, and to suspect everyone who might by any possibility guess his secret; but I would have given anything then to have heard one word from him that even hinted at the truth – to have seen in his eyes the faintest suggestion of fear. I began to understand that in the event of Murray Olivant being identified, that faithful servant Tinman might well hang, after all, for what he had not done.

"And so I've come down here, to see if I can get any news of poor Barbara," he went on. "I've a shrewd suspicion that I may hear something of her; I don't think Murray would have bolted like that, unless he had found that the game was up, do you?

"Miss Barbara is down here – with her father," I said.

He turned to me quickly. "How do you know that?" he asked in surprise.

"I know it – that is all," I said.

Presently he found my slow steps too slow for his impatience; he excused himself, and hurried away at a great rate in the direction of the house, leaving me walking more slowly in his wake, and looking sadly after him. For this was different from anything I had anticipated; this was but a mean slipping-out of the business, with nothing heroic about it. I felt sorry for the child who was to trust her life to him.

It was with a great sense of relief that, as I came nearer to the house, I met the elder Barbara. She stopped for a moment on seeing me, and then came towards me rapidly, with her hands clasped at her breast, looking at me. Only then did I remember, miserably enough, on what errand I had set out when last I had seen her, and with what threat on my lips. I realized that my troubles were not over.

"My dear, you have news for me?" she whispered, looking straight into my eyes. "Tell me everything."

"First tell me if you have seen the boy – young Millard?"

"Yes, I've seen him; he's happy enough now. I saw him go to Barbara; there seemed a perfect understanding between them in a moment. They trust each other so completely."

"They trust each other so completely," I replied mechanically. "Well – perhaps that is well. Now for my news, Barbara. What would you wish me to tell you?"

"The truth," she whispered, still looking at me intently.

I thought of the boy, with the brand of Cain upon him, who was at that moment doubtless holding the child of this Barbara in his arms, and whispering that he loved her; and she trusted him so completely! "You want the truth?" I responded with a smile. "Then I have no news for you."

She took me in her arms – there, in that quiet country lane; she spoke to me, as I knew, out of the depth of her great love for me. "The truth, Charlie – the truth to me, at least," she pleaded.

I saw that it had come once again to the parting of the ways for us, just as it had done twenty years before; I knew that for the boy's sake, and for the sake of the girl who loved him, I must again thrust myself out of life. For I must lie to this woman, who held me in her arms and pleaded for the truth. And in giving her that which she must for ever believe to be the truth, I must wound her again, as I had wounded her long ago. "You shall know the truth," I said slowly – "if you will promise to do what I ask. Promise."

"I will promise anything – and everything."

"I went away from you, meaning to kill Murray Olivant," I said, like one repeating a lesson. "You should know that I do not fail in such a matter. I have killed him." She clapped her hand upon my lips, and looked round her quickly; I took the hand, and drew it away, and kissed it, and went on with what I had to say. "All the world believes that he sails this morning for the Mediterranean; it is possible that the murder will not be discovered. That's the truth."

She clung to me, shuddering; she asked me in a whisper what it was that I wanted her to do.

"Go back to your husband," I said. "It is not he that needs you, so much as the girl. She needs you more than she ever needed you in her life before. Will you keep your promise to me?"

"Yes," she said in a whisper, as her arms fell to her sides – "I will go back to him."

She turned away, and left me standing there, looking after her as she went.