Kitabı oku: «The White Lie», sayfa 15
CHAPTER XXIX.
DEADLY PERIL
Ralph Ansell made a sudden dash at his wife, gripping her by the throat with his gloved hands.
She staggered to the table, and he bent her backwards across it. His evil face was distorted by a look of murderous hatred, his big eyes started from their sockets in his wild frenzy of anger.
“Where are those pearls?” he demanded. “Speak! Give them to me at once, or, by Heaven, I’ll strangle you!”
“I – I don’t know,” she managed to gasp. “They were in there. I – I – I thought they were there.”
“You liar! You got the letter and burned it, well knowing that the jewels were not in the box! Where are they?” he demanded, tightening his grip upon her throat and shaking her roughly. “Speak, woman – speak! Tell me where they are!”
Jean struggled frantically to free herself from his murderous grip. He was throttling her.
“I – I don’t know – where – they are!” she protested, with great difficulty.
“You do! You’ve kept them!” he hissed between his teeth, for he was in a fury of fierce anger at having been so deceived. “It’s no use lying. I mean to have them, or go straight to this man Bracondale.”
“I’m telling the truth!” protested the unhappy woman. “They were there half an hour ago. I put them there.”
“Bah! Don’t tell me that! They could not have gone without hands. No, you’ve worked a real slick trick! And I was fool enough to trust you! Come, hand them over at once – if you don’t want Bracondale to know,” and he again forced her farther back over the table. “He’ll be here in a minute. What a nice scene for him – eh? Come, where are those pearls?”
“I’ve told you I don’t know. It’s the truth, Ralph, I swear it!” she cried, in wild despair. “Somebody must have stolen them!”
“You liar!” he cried, his face white with evil passion. “Do you dare to tell me that? Do you think I’m a fool to believe such a story? Stolen! Of course they’re not stolen. You’ve hidden them. Yes,” he added, “you’ve been devilish clever to get that letter out of me, and burn it before my eyes – haven’t you – eh? But you shall pay for it!” he cried, between his teeth, as his strong hands compressed her throat until she went scarlet and her wild, glaring eyes started from her head.
She tried to cry out – tried to shriek and raise an alarm, for she knew her life was in danger. But she could utter no sound beyond a low gurgle.
“You refuse to give me the pearls – eh?” he said, his dark brows knit, and murder in his piercing eyes. “You think to trick me – your husband! By gad! You shall pay for this! Tell me where they are. This is your last moment. You shall die – die – curse you!” And his grip tightened upon her thin, white throat – the grip of a murderer.
Jean, unable to move, unable to cry out, felt herself fainting, when next second she was startled by a sharp pistol shot.
“Ah!” gasped her assailant, releasing his hold instantly and clapping his right hand to his back.
The shot had been fired from behind.
“Ah!” cried the wounded man in wild despair. “I – why, I – ”
Then he reeled completely round and fell backward upon the carpet – inert – dead!
At the same instant Jean, staggered by the suddenness of it all, was confronted by a ragged, unkempt, hatless man in a striped jacket some sizes too big for him. Around his neck was a dirty scarf in lieu of a collar, and his dark hair was curly and ruffled.
She saw the man emerge from the curtain, and started back in increased alarm.
“Madame!” cried the newcomer, “it is me! Don’t you know me?”
She stood rooted to the spot.
“Adolphe!” she gasped, staring at him.
“Yes, madame. I came here, not knowing that this was your château,” he explained, in a low whisper. “I found the window open just before that man arrived. I came in and took your pearls. Here they are!”
And he drew them from the pocket of his shabby jacket and handed them back to her.
“Where – where did you come from? You have saved my life,” she faltered in blank amazement.
“I came out of prison nine months ago,” was his reply. “They brought me to Paris, but I could find no work, so I tramped to Havre, hoping to get a job at the docks, or to work my passage to New York. But all to no avail, so I – I had, alas! to return to my old profession. And the first house I enter I find, to my dismay, is yours!”
“You heard us talking?” she asked quickly.
“I heard everything – and I understood everything,” was the quick reply. “That man,” he went on, “robbed me and gave me deliberately into the hands of the police. I swore to be avenged, and I have killed him – as he deserves. He was an assassin, and I am his executioner!”
“But the servants will be alarmed by the shot!” she gasped suddenly. “There is no time to lose. You must want money. I shall send you some to the Poste Restante in Havre – to-morrow. Now go – or you may be discovered.”
“But how will you explain?” he asked hurriedly. “Ah, madame, through those long, dreary years at Devil’s Island I have thought of you, and wondered – and wondered what had become of you. I am so glad to know that you are rich and happy, as you assuredly deserve.”
She sighed, for a flood of memories came over her.
“Yes, Adolphe, I am greatly indebted to you. Twice you have saved me from that man’s violence. Ah, I shall not forget.”
“But, madame, think of yourself! If he comes – if the servants come – how can you explain his body in your room? Let me think!”
Already Jean fancied she heard sounds of someone moving in the house, and of subdued and frightened voices.
Yes, the servants had been alarmed, and were searching from room to room! Not an instant was to be lost.
“I have an idea!” exclaimed “The Eel.” “Here, take this, madame,” and he held out his revolver to her with both hands.
But she shrank back.
“Take it – take it, I beg of you,” he implored.
She obeyed, moving like one in a dream.
Swiftly he took up the pearls and, bending, placed them in the dead man’s pocket. Then, having done this, he said:
“Your explanation is quite a simple one. You came in here unexpectedly, and found the man – a perfect stranger to you, and a burglar, evidently, from the fact that he wore gloves – taking your pearls from their case. You demanded them back, but he turned upon you with a revolver. There was a struggle for the weapon. You twisted his hand back, and in the fight it went off. And he fell dead. Keep cool. That is your story.”
“But I – ”
“That is the only story, madame,” he said firmly. “It is a lie, I admit – but a white lie – the only explanation you can give, if you would still preserve your secret.”
Footsteps sounded out in the hall, and therefore there was not a second to waste.
The thief grasped her thin, white hand and, bending devotedly, kissed it.
“Adieu, madame. May Heaven assist and preserve you in future!” he whispered, and next moment he had disappeared behind the curtain and dropped over the verandah.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE WHITE LIE
For a few seconds Jean stood motionless, staring at the lifeless body of her husband, who lay with face upturned, the evil eyes closed, the hands listless by his sides.
His head was towards the window, close to a small gilt settee, his feet towards the door.
She stood with her eyes full of horror, fixed upon the white, dead face.
In that dread moment a veritable lifetime of despair swept through her fevered brain.
The servants, with hushed, terrified voices, were searching the rooms on the ground floor. She could hear Miss Oliver speaking.
Their footsteps sounded on the big, tiled hall outside the door. What if Adolphe were captured leaving the premises?
She held her breath. All her self-possession was required now, for she also recognised Bracondale’s voice. He had returned!
Was silence judicious in those circumstances? She decided it was not. Therefore she gave vent to a loud scream – a scream which told them where she was.
In a moment they all burst into the room – Bracondale in his evening clothes, Miss Oliver in her dressing-gown, and the two footmen, who had hastily dressed, one of them without his coat.
The servants, seeing a man lying upon the carpet, halted upon the threshold, but Bracondale dashed forward to his wife, who stood with her hands to her brow in frantic terror. She was, he saw, on the verge of fainting. Therefore he took her in his arms and hastily inquired what had occurred.
“He’s dead – I believe!” gasped one of the footmen, in French.
“Jean! What has happened?” Bracondale demanded, in amazement. “Tell me, dearest.”
But she was too agitated to speak. She only clung to him and, burying her face upon his shoulder, sobbed hysterically, while Miss Oliver rushed away for a smelling-bottle.
“Who is this man?” Bracondale asked in a hard voice. “What is the matter? The servants heard a shot just after I came in. They came to me in the study – but I had heard nothing.”
She raised her wild eyes to his, and then glanced round the pretty apartment. Her gaze fell upon Ralph Ansell’s dead face, and she shuddered and shrank back. Her mouth was twitching. She was hysterical, and could say nothing.
“Tell me, Jean. What does all this mean?” asked Bracondale, very quietly, considering the circumstances.
“Ah! no dear!” she cried. “Don’t ask me – don’t ask me! I – I killed him!”
“Killed him!” echoed her husband blankly. “What do you mean? You are not yourself, dearest.”
She looked at the servants meaningly.
“Will you leave us alone?” Bracondale said, turning to them just as Miss Oliver returned with the bottle of smelling-salts.
They all left the room, including the governess, husband and wife being left with the dead man.
“Tell me, darling, what has occurred?” asked Bracondale in a soft, sympathetic voice, endeavouring to calm her.
For a long time she refused to answer. She could not bring herself to speak a lie to him, not even a white lie! The night had been so full of horror and tragedy that she was beside herself. She wondered whether it were not, after all, a horrible dream.
Yet no! It was true. Ralph Ansell was dead. He had carried his secret with him to the grave, and she was free – free! She was really Lady Bracondale, the mother of Bracondale’s child!
She had been at the point of confessing. But no. Bracondale must know nothing.
“You killed this man, Jean?” her husband was saying in a low, intense voice. “Why?”
“I – I – he attacked me, and I – ”
She did not conclude her sentence.
“Why, your neck is all black and blue!” Bracondale said, noticing it for the first time.
“He tried to strangle me, then he intended to shoot me,” she said hysterically. “We struggled – and – and it – it went off!”
“But who is he?”
“How can I tell?” she asked frantically. “I came in here unexpectedly, and saw him with my pearls in his hand. I – I demanded them back, but he refused. I threatened to shout and alarm the servants, but he sprang upon me and tried to strangle me!”
Bracondale, for the first time, noticed that the morocco jewel-case stood open on the table.
“He must have got them from your bedroom!” he exclaimed; and then, his quick eye catching sight of the tinder of the burnt letter in the fender of the stove, he bent, picked it up, and remarked:
“He seems to have also burnt something. I wonder what it was?”
His lordship crossed the carpet and stood looking upon the dead face.
“Who is he? Do you know, Jean?” he inquired in a serious, intense tone.
“I – I have no idea.”
“The police will establish his identity, no doubt. I will telephone for them,” he said. “But where are the pearls now?”
“In his pocket, I expect,” she said.
Bracondale bent and hastily felt the outside of one of the dead man’s pockets. But they were not there.
He felt the other, and, discovering them, drew out the beautiful string, and replaced it in its box.
“An expert thief, I should say, from his dress,” remarked Bracondale. “He wears gloves, too – just as all modern burglars do.”
“He nearly strangled me,” Jean declared weakly.
“It was fortunate that the revolver went off during the struggle, or he might have killed you, dearest. Ah! you are a brave girl. The papers will, no doubt, be full of this!”
“Ah! no!” she implored. “Do not let us have any publicity. I – I hate to think that I have killed a man – even though he be an armed burglar.”
“But the law permits you to take life in self-defence, therefore do not trouble yourself over it. He would, no doubt, have killed you with little compunction, rather than forego carrying away his prize.”
“Yes – but – ”
“No,” urged her husband kindly. “Do not let us discuss it further. Come with me to your room. I will telephone to the police in Havre, and leave the rest to them. Come, dearest, you have had a terrible experience, and you must rest quietly now – and recover.”
He linked his arms in hers tenderly, and conducted her slowly from the presence of that white, dead countenance she knew, alas! too well.
After taking her to her room and leaving her in the hands of Bates, her maid, he descended, and from the study telephoned to the Chef de la Sûreté at Havre.
Then, receiving a reply that three agents of police would at once be dispatched on cycles, he went upstairs to where she was seated in a big arm-chair, pale and trembling, still suffering from the shock.
It was only when they were again alone, and he took her in his strong arms, kissed her fondly upon the lips, and softly reassured her, that she could summon courage to speak.
“You do love me, Jack?” she asked with intense, eager eyes. “You do really love me? Tell me.”
“Why, of course I do, dearest,” he declared. “Why do you ask? Have you not seen that I love you?”
“I – I – yes, I know. But I thought perhaps you – ”
She hesitated. She was wondering if he suspected anything. But no. She was free! Adolphe, ever sympathetic and ever faithful to her interests, had saved her. Yet, poor fellow, he was only a thief!
She swallowed the big lump that arose in her throat, and then, throwing her long, white arms wildly about her husband’s neck, she kissed him with a fierce, intense passion, bursting into tears – tears of joy.
True, she had told a white lie, but in the circumstances, could you, my reader, blame her?
