A Terrible Secret, May Agnes Fleming [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

one _could_ murder her? 'I must find her murderer.' Oh," he cried, suddenly, in a voice of anguish; "what does it matter about her murderer! It won't bring her back to life. She is dead I tell you--dead!"

He flung himself off his chair, on his knees by the couch. He drew down the white satin counterpane, and pointed to that one dark, small stab on the left side.

"Look!" he said, in a shrill, wailing voice, "through the heart--through the heart! She did not suffer--the doctors say _that_. Through the heart as she slept. Oh, my love, my darling, my wife!"

He kissed the wound--he kissed the hands, the face, the hair. Then with a long, low moan of utter desolation, he drew back the covering and buried his face in it.

"Leave me alone," he said, despairingly; "I will not go--I will never go from her again. She was mine in life--mine only. Juan Catheron lied, she is mine in death. My wife--my Ethel!"

He started up as suddenly as he had flung himself down, his ghastly face flaming dark red.

"Leave me alone, I tell you! Why do you all come here? I will _not_ go! Leave me, I command you--I am master here!"

She shrank from him in absolute physical terror. Never over-strong at any time, her worst fears were indeed true, the shock of his wife's tragic death was turning Sir Victor's brain. There was nothing to be done--nothing to be said--he must be obeyed--must be soothed.

"Dear Victor," she said, "I will go. Don't be hard with poor Aunt Helena. There is no one in all this world as sorry for you as I am. Only tell me this before I leave you--shall we not send for her father and mother?"

"No," he answered, in the same fierce tone; "they can't bring her back to life--no one can now. I don't want them. I want nobody. Ethel is mine I tell you--mine alone!"

He motioned her imperiously to leave him--a light in his eye--a flush on his face there was no mistaking. She went at once. How was it all to end she wondered, more and more sick at heart--this mysterious murder, this suspicion against Inez, this dreadful overthrow of her nephew's mind?

"May Heaven help us!" she cried. "What have we done that this awful trouble should come upon us!"

"Aunt Helena."

She looked round with a little cry, all her nerves trembling and unstrung. Inez stood before her--Inez with dark, resolute eyes, and stony face.

"I have been waiting for you--they told me you were _there_." She pointed with a shudder to the door. "What are we to do?"

"Don't ask me," Lady Helena answered, helplessly. "I don't know. I feel stunned and stupid with all these horrors."

"The police are here," Miss Catheron went on, "and the coroner has been apprised. I suppose, they will hold an inquest to-morrow."

Her aunt looked at her in surprise. The calm, cold tone of her voice grated on her sick heart.

"Have you seen _him_?" she asked almost in a whisper. "Inez--I fear--I fear it is turning his brain."

Miss Catheron's short, scornful upper lip, curled with the old look of contempt.

"The Catheron brain was never noted for its strength. I shall not be surprised at all. Poor wretch!" She turned away and looked out into the darkness. "It does seem hard on him."

"Who can have done it?"

The question on every lip rose to Lady Helena's, but somehow she could not utter it. Did Inez know of the dark, sinister suspicion against herself? _Could_ she know and be calm like this?

"I forgot to ask for Uncle Godfrey," Inez's quiet voice said again. "Of course he is better, or even at such a time as this you would not be here?"

"He is better, Inez," she broke out desperately. "Who can have done this? She had not an enemy in the world. Is--is there any one suspected?"

"There is," Inez answered, turning from the window, and facing her aunt. "The servants suspect _me_."

"Inez!"

"Their case isn't a bad one as they make it out," pursued Miss Catheron, cooly. "There was ill blood between us. It is of no use denying it. I hated her with my whole heart. I was the last person seen coming out of the room, fifteen minutes before they found her dead. Jane Pool says I refused to let her go in--perhaps I did. It is quite likely. About an hour previously we had a violent quarrel. The ubiquitous Mrs. Pool overheard that also. You see her case is rather a strong one."

"But--Inez--!"

"I chanced to overhear all this," still went on Miss Catheron, quietly, but with set lips and gleaming eyes. "Jane Pool was holding forth to the inspector of police. I walked up to them, and they both slunk away like beaten curs. Orders have been issued, that no one is to leave the house. To-morrow these facts are to be placed before the coroner's jury. If they find me guilty--don't cry, Aunt Helena--I shall be sorry for _you_--sorry I have disgraced a good old name. For the rest, it doesn't much matter what becomes of such a woman as I am."

She turned again to the window and looked out into the darkness. There was a desperate bitterness in her tone that Lady Helena could not understand.

"Good Heaven!" she burst forth, "one would think you were all in a conspiracy to drive me mad. It doesn't matter, what becomes of you, doesn't it? I tell you if this last worst misery falls upon us, it will kill me on the spot; just that."

The girl sighed drearily.

"Kill you, Aunt Helena," she repeated, mournfully. "No--we don't any of us die so easily. Don't be afraid--I am not likely to talk in this way before any one but you. I am only telling you the truth. They will have the inquest, and all that Jane Pool can say against me will be said. Do you think Victor will be able to appear?"

"I don't think Victor is in a condition to appear at an inquest or anywhere else. Ah, poor boy! he loved her so dearly, it is enough to shake the mind of a stronger man."

But Miss Catheron was dead silent--it was evident her feelings here were as bitter as ever--that even the tragic death of her rival had not softened her.

"He will survive it," she answered, in the same half-contemptuous tone. "Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

"Inez," said her aunt, suddenly coming a step nearer, "a rumor has reached me--is it true?--that Juan is back--that he has been here?"

"It is quite true," her niece answered, without turning round; "he _has_ been here. He was here on the night Lady Catheron first came."

"There is another rumor afloat, that there was a violent quarrel on that occasion--that he claimed to be an old lover of Ethel's, poor child, and that Victor turned him out. Since then it is said he has been seen more than once prowling about the grounds. For everybody's sake I hope it is not true."

Inez faced round suddenly--almost fiercely.

"And what if I say it _is_ true, in every respect? He did come--there was a quarrel, and Victor ordered him out. Since then he has been here--prowling, as you call it--trying to see me, trying to force me to give him money. I was flinty as usual, and would give him none. Where is the crime in all that?"

"Has he gone?" was Lady Helena's response.

"I believe so--I hope so. He had nothing to stay for. Of course he has gone."

"I am glad of that, at least. And now, as it seems I can do nothing more at present, I will return home. Watch Victor, Inez--he needs it, believe me. I will return at the earliest possible moment to-morrow."

So, in the chill gray of the fast-coming morning, Lady Helena, very heavy-hearted, returned to Powyss Place and her sick husband's bedside.

Meantime matters were really beginning to look dark for Miss Catheron. The superintendent of the district, Mr. Ferrick, was filling his note-book with very ominous information. She had loved Sir Victor--she had hated Sir Victor's wife--they had led a cat-and-dog life from the first--an hour before the murder they had had a violent quarrel--Lady Catheron had threatened to make her husband turn her out of the house on the morrow. At eight o'clock, Jane Pool had left the nursery with the baby, my lady peacefully asleep in her chair--the Eastern poniard on the table. At half-past eight, returning to arouse my lady, she had encountered Miss Inez coming out of the nursery, and Miss Inez had ordered her sharply away, telling her my lady was still asleep. A quarter of nine, Ellen, the maid, going to the room, found my lady stone dead, stabbed through the heart. Miss Inez, when summoned by Hooper, is ghastly pale at first, and hardly seems to know what she is doing or saying. A very pretty case of tragedy in high life, Superintendent Ferrick thinks, pursing up his lips with professional zest, and not the first murder jealousy has made fine ladies commit, either. Now if that Turkish dagger would only turn up.

Two policemen are sent quietly in search of it through the grounds. It isn't likely they'll find it, still it will do no harm to try. He finds out which are Miss Catheron's rooms, and keeps his official eye upon them. He goes through the house with the velvet tread of a cat. In the course of his wanderings everywhere, he brings up presently in the stables, and finds them untenanted, save by one lad, who sits solitary among the straw. He is rather a dull-looking youth, with a florid, vacant face at most times, but looking dazed and anxious just now. "Something on _his_ mind," thinks the superintendent, and sits sociably down on a box beside him at once.

"Now, my man," Mr. Ferrick says, pleasantly, "and what is it that's troubling _you_? Out with it--every little's a help in a case like this."

The lad--his name is Jimmy--does not need pressing--his secret has been weighing uneasily upon him for the last hour or more, ever since he heard of the murder, in fact, and he pours his revelation into the superintendent's eager ear. His revelation is this:

Last evening, just about dusk, strolling by chance in the direction of the Laurel walk, he heard voices raised and angry in the walk--the voices of a man and a woman. He had peeped through the branches and seen my lady and a very tall man. No, it wasn't Sir Victor--it was a much bigger man, with long black curling hair. Didn't see his face. It was dark in there among the trees. Wasn't sure, but it struck him it might be the tall, black-avised man, who came first the night Sir Victor brought home my lady, and who had been seen skulking about the park once or twice since. Had heard a whisper, that the man was Miss Inez's brother--didn't know himself. All he did know was, that my lady and a man were quarrelling on the evening of the murder in the Laurel walk. What were they quarrelling about? Well, he couldn't catch their talk very well--it was about money he thought. The man wanted money and jewels, and my lady wouldn't give 'em. He threatened to do something or tell something; then _she_ threatened to have him put in Chesholm jail if