The Shadow of the Rope, E. W. Hornung [good novels to read in english txt] 📗

to have to meet it," observed Langholm, "if I were he."

"I should find out a little more," was the retort, "if I were you!"

"And then?"

"Oh, then I should do my duty like a man—and take all the emoluments I could."

The sneer was intolerable. Langholm turned the color of brick.

"I shall!" said he through his mustache. "I have consulted you; there will be no need to do so again. I shall make a point of taking you at your word. And now do you mind putting me ashore?"

A few raindrops were falling when they reached the landing-stage; they hurried to the house, to find that Langholm's bicycle had been removed from the place where he had left it by the front entrance.

"Don't let anybody trouble," he said, ungraciously enough, for he was still smarting from the other's sneer. "I can soon find it for myself."

Steel stood on the steps, his midnight eyes upon Langholm, the glint of a smile in those eyes, but not the vestige of one upon his lips.

"Oh, very well," said he. "You know the side-door near the billiard-room? They have probably put it in the first room on the left; that is where we keep ours—for we have gone in for them at last. Good-by, Langholm; remember my advice."

And, that no ceremony should be lost between them, the host turned on his heel and disappeared through his own front door, leaving Langholm very angry in the rain.

But anger was the last emotion for such an hour; the judge might as well feel exasperated with the prisoner at the bar, the common hangman with the felon on the drop. Langholm only wished that, on even one moment's reflection, he could rest content in so primitive and so single a state of mind. He knew well that he could not, and that every subtle sort of contest lay before him, his own soul the arena. In the meantime let him find his bicycle and get away from this dear and accursed spot; for dear it had been to him, all that too memorable summer; but now of a surety the curse of Cain brooded over its cold, white walls and deep-set windows like sunken eyes in a dead face.

Langholm found the room to which he had been directed; in fact, he knew it of old. And there were the two new Beeston Humbers; but their lustrous plating and immaculate enamel did not shame his own old disreputable roadster, for the missing machine certainly was not there. Langholm was turning away when the glazed gun-rack caught his eye. Yes, this was the room in which the guns were kept. He had often seen them there. They had never interested him before. Langholm was no shot. Yet now he peered through the glass—gasped—and opened one of the sliding panels with trembling hand.

There on a nail hung an old revolver, out of place, rusty, most conspicuous; and at a glance as like the relic in the Black Museum as one pea to another. But Langholm took it down to make sure. And the maker's name upon the barrel was the name that he had noted down at the Black Museum; the point gained, the last of the cardinal points postulated by the official who had shown him round.

The fortuitous discoverer of them all was leaving like a thief—more and more did Langholm feel himself the criminal—when the inner door opened and Steel himself stood beaming sardonically upon him.

"Sorry, Langholm, but I find I misled you about the bicycle. They had taken it to the stables. I have told them to bring it round to the front."

"Thank you."

"Sure you won't wait till the rain is over?"

"No, thank you."

"Well, won't you come through this way?"

"No, thank you."

"Oh, all right! Good-by, Langholm; remember my advice."

It was an inglorious exit that Langholm made; but he was thinking to himself, was there ever so inglorious a triumph? He knew not what he had said; there was only one thing that he did know. But was the law itself capable of coping with such a man?

CHAPTER XXVII THE WHOLE TRUTH

"Have the ladies gone?"

Langholm had ridden a long way round, through the rain, in order to avoid them; nor was there any sign of the phaeton in the lane; yet these were his first whispered words across the wicket, and he would not venture to set foot upon the noisy wet gravel without Mrs. Brunton's assurance that the ladies had been gone some time.

"And they've left him a different man," she added. "But what have you been doing to get wet like that? Dear, dear, dear! I do call it foolish of yer! Well, sir, get out o' them nasty wet things, or I shall have you to nurse an' all!"

The kind, blunt soul bustled to bring him a large can of scalding water, and Langholm bathed and changed before going near the invalid. He also felt another man. The thorough wetting had cooled his spirit and calmed his nerves. His head still ached for sleep, but now it was clear enough. If only his duty were half as plain as the mystery that was one no more! Yet it was something to have solved the prime problem; nay, everything, since it freed his mind for concentration upon his own immediate course. But Langholm reckoned without his stricken guest next door; and went up presently, intending to stay five or ten minutes at the most.

Severino lay smiling, like a happy and excited child. Langholm was sorry to detect the excitement, but determined to cut his own visit shorter than ever. It was more pleasing to him to note how neat and comfortable the room was now, for that was his own handiwork, and the ladies had been there to see it. The good Bruntons had moved most of their things into the room to which they had themselves migrated. In their stead were other things which Langholm had unearthed from the lumber in his upper story, dusted, and carried down and up with his own hands. Thus at the bedside stood a real Chippendale table, with a real Delft vase upon it, filled with such roses as had survived the rain. A drop of water had been spilt upon the table from the vase, and there was something almost fussy in the way that Langholm removed it with his handkerchief.

"Oh," said Severino, "she quite fell in love with the table you found for me, and Mrs. Woodgate wanted the vase. They were wondering if Mrs. Brunton would accept a price."

"They don't belong to Mrs. Brunton," said Langholm, shortly.

"No? Mrs. Woodgate said she had never noticed them in your room. Where did you pick them up?"

Langholm looked at the things, lamps of remembrance alight beneath his lowered eyelids. "The table came from a little shop on Bushey Heath, in Hertfordshire, you know. We—I was spending the day there once ... you had to stoop to get in at the door, I remember. The vase is only from Great Portland Street." The prices were upon his lips; both had been bargains, a passing happiness and pride.

"I must remember to tell them when they come to-morrow," said Severino. "They are the sort of thing a woman likes."

"They are," agreed Langholm, his lowered eyes still lingering on the table and the vase "the sort of thing a woman likes ... So these women are coming again to-morrow, are they?"

The question was quite brisk, when it came.

"Yes, they promised."

"Both of them, eh?"

"Yes, I hope so!" The sick man broke into eager explanations. "I only want to see her, Langholm! That's all I want. I don't want her to myself. What is the good? To see her and be with her is all I want—ever. It has made me so happy. It is really better than if she came alone. You see, as it is, I can't say anything—that matters. Do you see?"

"Perfectly," said Langholm, gently.

The lad lay gazing up at him with great eyes. Langholm fancied their expression was one of incredulity. Twilight was falling early with the rain; the casement was small, and further contracted by an overgrowth of creeper; those two great eyes seemed to shine the brighter through the dusk. Langholm could not make his visit a very short one, after all. He felt it would be cruel.

"What did you talk about, then?" he asked.

A small smile came with the answer, "You!"

"Me! What on earth had you to say about me?"

"I heard all you had been doing."

"Oh, that."

"You know you didn't tell me, that evening in town."

"No, I was only beginning, then."

It seemed some months ago—more months since that very afternoon.

"Have you found out anything?"

Langholm hesitated.

"Yes."

Why should he lie?

"Do you mean to say that you have any suspicion who it is?" Severino was on his elbow.

"More than a suspicion. I am certain. There can be no doubt about it. A pure fluke gave me the clew, but every mortal thing fits it."

Severino dropped back upon his pillow. Langholm seemed glad to talk to him, to loosen his tongue, to unburden his heart ever so little. And, indeed, he was glad.

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"That's my difficulty. She must be cleared before the world. That is the first duty—if it could be done without—making bad almost worse!"

"Bad—worse? How could it, Langholm?"

No answer.

"Who do you say it is?"

No answer again. Langholm had not bargained to say anything to anybody just yet.

Severino raised himself once more upon an elbow.

"I must know!" he said.

Langholm rose, laughing.

"I'll tell you who I thought it was at first," said he, heartily. "I don't mind telling you that, because it was so absurd; and I think you'll be the first to laugh at it. I was idiot enough to think it might be you, my poor, dear chap!"

"And you don't think so still?" asked Severino, harshly. He had not been the first to laugh.

"Of course I don't, my dear fellow."

"I wish you would sit down again. That's better. So you know it is some one else?"

"So far as one can know anything."

"And you are going to try to bring it home to this man?"

"I don't know. The police may save me the trouble. I believe they are on the same scent at last. Meanwhile, I have given him as fair a warning as a man could wish."

Severino lay back yet again in silence and deep twilight. His breath came quickly. A shiver seemed to pass through the bed.

"You needn't have done that," he whispered at last.

"I thought it was the fair thing to do."

"Yet you needn't have done it—because—your first idea was right!"

"I'll tell you who I thought it was at first," said he, heartily.

"Right?" echoed Langholm, densely. "My first idea was—right?"

"You said you first thought it was I who killed—her husband."

"It couldn't have been!"

"But it was."

Langholm got back to his feet. He could conceive but one explanation of this preposterous statement. Severino's sickness had extended to his brain. He was delirious. This was the first sign.

"Where are you going?" asked the invalid, querulously, as his companion moved towards the door.

"When was the doctor here last?" demanded Langholm in return.

There was silence for a few moments, and then a faint laugh, that threatened to break into a sob, from the bed.

"I see what you think. How can I convince you that I have all my wits about me? I'd rather not have a light just yet—but in my bag you'll find a writing-case. It is locked, but the keys are in my trouser's pocket. In my writing-case you will find a sealed envelope, and in that a fuller confession than I shall have breath to make to you. Take it downstairs and glance at it—then come back."

"No, no," said Langholm, hoarsely; "no, I believe you! Yes—it was my first idea!"

"I hardly knew what I was doing," Severino whispered. "I was delirious then, if you like! Yet I remember it better than anything else in all my life. I have never forgotten it for an hour—since it first came back!"

"You really were unconscious for days afterwards?"

"I believe it was weeks. Otherwise, you must know—she will be the first to believe—I never could have let her—"

"My poor, dear fellow—of course—of course."

Langholm felt for the emaciated hand, and stroked it as though it had been a child's. Yet that was the hand that had slain Alexander Minchin! And Langholm thought of it; and still his own was almost womanly in the tender pity of its touch.

"I want to tell you," the sick lad