Works of Ellen Wood, page 929
“Hewitt, I want you to step over to the Maze and inquire whether the plumbers have been there yet. There’s something wrong with a drain. Ask the servants at the same time how their mistress is getting on. And—”
Giles had stood gaping and listening. Karl broke off to bid him look for his umbrella.
“No message, Hewitt, and no answer,” breathed his master, as he handed him the note. “Put it in your pocket.”
“All right, sir,” nodded Hewitt, and was away before Giles came back with the umbrella. And Karl got off at last.
Perhaps Mr. Burtenshaw was astonished, perhaps not, to see Sir Karl Andinnian enter that same afternoon. He, the detective, was poring over his papers, as usual, but he turned from them to salute his visitor.
“Will you take a seat, Sir Karl, for two minutes, After that, I am at your service.”
“You know me, then, Mr. Burtenshaw!” exclaimed Karl.
“The man who happened to come into the room with Grimley, the last time you were here, sir, said you were Sir Karl Andinnian,” replied the officer without scruple. “Take a seat, sir, pray.”
Mr. Burtenshaw placed four or five letters, already written, within their envelopes, directed, and stamped them. Then he quitted the room, probably to send them to the post, came in again, and drew a chair in front of Karl. “He is looking worse than ever,” was the mental summary of the detective— “but what a nice face it is!”
Ay, it was. The pale, beautiful features, their refined expression, the thoughtfulness in the sweet grey eyes, and the strange sadness that pervaded every lineament, made a picture that was singularly attractive. Karl had one glove off; and the diamond and opal ring he always wore in remembrance of his father flashed in the sunlight. For the buff blinds were not down to-day. He had wished to give the ring back to his brother, when he found he had no right to it himself, but Adam had insisted upon his keeping it and wearing it, lest “the world might inquire where the ring was gone.” Another little deceit, as it always seemed to Karl.
“I have called here, Mr. Burtenshaw, to ask you to answer me a question honestly. Have you — stay though,” he broke off. “As you know me, I presume you know where I live?”
“Quite well, Sir Karl. I was at the Court once in Sir Joseph Andinnian’s time.”
“Ay, of course you would know it. Now for my question. Have you sent a detective officer down to Foxwood after Philip Salter?”
“I have not,” replied Mr. Burtenshaw, with, Karl thought, a stress upon the “I.”
“But you know that one is there?”
“Why do you ask me this?” cried Mr. Burtenshaw, making no immediate reply.
“Because I have reason to believe, in fact to know, that a detective officer is at Foxwood, and I wish to ascertain what he is there for. I presume it can only be to search after Philip Salter.”
“And what if it were?” asked Mr. Burtenshaw. “Nothing. Nothing that could in any way affect you. I want to ascertain it, yes or no, for my own private and individual satisfaction.”
“Well, you are right, Sir Karl. One of our men has gone down there with that object.”
Karl paused. “I suppose I have led to it,” he said. “That is, that it has been done in consequence of the inquiries I made of you.”
“Of those you made of Grimley, sir, not of me. I had nothing to do with sending Tatton down—”
Karl caught at the name. “Tatton, do you call him?” he interrupted. And Mr. Burtenshaw nodded. “He calls himself ‘Strange down there.”
“Oh, does he? He knows what he is about, Sir Karl, rely upon it.”
“Who did send him down?”
“Scotland Yard. It appears that Grimley, taking up the notion through you that he had found a due to the retreat of Salter, went to Scotland Yard, announced that Salter was in hiding somewhere in the neighbourhood of Foxwood, and asked that a search should be set on foot for him.”
Karl sat thinking. If the man Tatton went down after Philip Salter, what brought him within the grounds of the Maze, watching the house at night? Whence also that endeavour to get in by day, and his questions to Ann Hopley? Was it Tatton who did this? — or were there two men, Strange and Tatton?
“What sort of a man is Tatton?” he asked aloud. “Slight and fair?”
“Slight and fair; about thirty years of age, Sir Karl. Curly hair.”
“They must be the same,” mentally decided Karl. “I presume,” he said, lifting his head, “that Tatton must have started on this expedition soon after I was here last?”
“The following day, I think.”
“Then he has been at Foxwood over long. More than long enough to have found Salter if Salter’s there, Mr. Burtenshaw.”
“That depends upon circumstances, Sir Karl,” replied the detective, with a wary smile. “I could tell you of a case where an escaped man was being looked after for twelve months before he was unearthed — and he had been close at hand all the while. They have as many ruses as a fox, these fugitives.”
“Nevertheless, as Tatton has not yet found Salter, I should consider it a tolerably sure proof that Salter is not at Foxwood.”
Mr. Burtenshaw threw a penetrating gaze at his visitor. “Will you undertake to give me your word, Sir Karl, that you do not know Philip Salter to be at Foxwood?”
“On my word and honour I do not know him to be there,” said Karl, decisively. “I should think he is not there.”
He spoke but in accordance with his opinion. The conviction had been gaining upon him the last few minutes that he must have been in error in suspecting Smith to be the man. How else was it, if he was the man, that Tatton had not found him?
“Salter is there,” said the detective — and Karl pricked up his ears to hear the decisive assertion. “We have positive information from Tatton that he is on his trail: — I am not sure but he has seen him. For the first week or two of Tatton’s sojourn there, he could discover no trace whatever of the man or his hiding-place; but accident gave him a clue, and he has found both: found his hiding-place and found him.”
“Then why does he not lay his hands upon him?” returned Karl, veering round again to the impression that it must be Smith.
“It is only a question of time, Sir Karl. No doubt he has good reasons for his delay. To know where a man is hiding may be one thing; to capture him quite another. Too much haste sometimes mars the game.”
“Tatton is going to remain at Foxwood, then?”
“Until the capture is accomplished, certainly.”
Karl’s heart sunk within him at the answer While Tatton was delaying his capture of Smith, he might be getting a clue to another escaped fugitive down there — Adam Andinnian. Nay, had he not already the clue? Might not this very delay be caused by some crafty scheme to take both criminals at once — to kill two birds with one stone? He asked one more question.
“Mr. Burtenshaw, how was it that suspicion was directed at all to Foxwood?”
“Grimley took up the notion after your second visit here, Sir Karl, that you had a suspicion of Salter yourself. I thought you understood this. Grimley fancied you were in the habit of seeing some one whom you believed, but did not feel quite sure, might be Salter. And he judged that the individual, whether it was Salter or not, must be in hiding near your dwelling-place — Foxwood.”
Ay; Karl saw how it was. He had done this. He and no other, had brought this additional danger upon his ill-fated brother, whom he would willingly have given his own life to shield.
There was nothing more to be asked of Mr. Burtenshaw: he had learnt all he came to hear. And Sir Karl with his load of care returned to Foxwood by the evening train.
CHAPTER VIII.
Another Kettle-Drum.
COMMOTION at Mrs. Jinks’s. Another afternoon kettle-drum on a grand scale. The two pastors, and more guests than could squeeze into the parlour. All the Foxwood ladies and an omnibus load or two from Basham.
Mr. Strange sat in his drawing-room on a threelegged stool; the one that supported Mrs. Jinks’s tub on washing days. His chairs had been borrowed. He had good-naturedly given up every one: so Mrs. Jinks introduced the wooden stool. These crowded meetings below had amused him at first; but he was getting a little tired with the bustle and the noise. Every time the street door was knocked at, it shook his room; the talking below could be heard nearly as plainly as though he were taking part in it. Still it made a little diversion in Mr. Strange’s solitary existence, if only to watch the arrival of the articles needed for the feast, and to smell the aroma of the coffee, made in the kitchen in a huge kettle. The supplies did not concern Mr. Cattacomb; his gentle flock took that on themselves, cost and all. There was no lack of good things, but rather a superabundance: since the Rev. Mr. Puff had come to augment the clerical force, the contributions had been too profuse. So that every one connected with the entertainment was in the seventh heaven of enjoyment and good humour; except Mrs. Jinks.
Perched on the hard stool, Mr. Strange, for lack of other employment, had noted the dainties as they came in. The wisest of us must unbend sometimes. A basket of muffins full to the brim; eleven sorts of jam — since it was discovered that the Reverend Guy loved preserves to satiety, the assortments had never failed; thirteen kinds of biscuits, trays of cake, glass pots of marmalade and honey, ripe rich fruits of all tempting colours, chocolate creams, candied oranges, lovely flowers.
Mr. Strange grew tired of looking; his head ached with the noise, his eyes with the splendour of the ladies’ dresses. For the company was arriving now, thick and threefold.
There had arisen a slight, a very slight, modicum of displeasure at Mr. Cattacomb. That zealous divine had been met four or five times walking with Mr. Moore’s third daughter, Jemima: at the last lecture he had distinctly been seen manoeuvring to get the young lady next to him. It gave offence. While he belonged to them all, all adored him; but let him once single out one of them for favour more than the rest, and woe betide his popularity. “And that little idiot of a Jemima Moore, too, who had not two ideas in her vain head!” as Jane St. Henry confidentially remarked. However, the Reverend Guy, upon receiving a hint from Miss Blake that he was giving umbrage, vowed and protested that it was all accident and imagination — that he hardly knew Miss Jemima from her sisters. So peace was restored, and the kettledrum grew out of it.
“I must have my chop all the same, Mrs. Jinks,” said Mr. Strange to the widow; who had come upstairs to ask the loan of his sugar tongs, and looked very red and excited over it.
“In course, sir, you shall have it. It might be ten minutes later, sir, than ord’nary, but I do hope you’ll excuse it, sir, if it is. You see how I’m drove with ‘em.
“I see that there seems to be a large company arriving.”
“Company!” returned Mrs. Jinks, the word causing her temper to explode; “I don’t know how they’ll ever get inside the room. I shall have to borrow a form from the school next door but one, and put it in the passage for some of ‘em; and, when that and the chairs is filled, the rest must stand. Never as long as I live, will I take in a unmarried parson-gent again, if he’s one of this here new sort that gets the ladies about him all day in church and gives drums out of it Hark at the laughing! Them two parsons be in their glory.”
“The ladies must be fond of drums, I should think, by their getting them up so frequently,” remarked Mr. Strange.
“Drat the huzzies! — they’d be fond of fifes too if it brought ’em round Cattakin’,” was the widow’s uncomplimentary rejoinder. “Better for ’em if they’d let the man alone to drink his tea in quiet and write his sermons — which I don’t believe ever does get writ, seeing he never has a minute to himself. Hark at that blessed door!” she continued; and indeed the knocking was keeping up a perpetual chorus. “If they’d only turn the handle they could come in of their-selves. I said so to the Miss St. Henrys one cleaning day that I had been called to it six times while scrubbing down the kitchen stairs, and the young ladies answered me that they’d not come in to Mr. Cattakin’s without knocking, for the world.”
“I suppose not,” said Mr. Strange, slightly laughing.
“Hang that knocker again. There it goes! And me with all the drum on my shoulders. You should see the muffins we’ve got to toast and butter downstairs, sir; your conscience ‘ud fail you. Betsey Chaffin has come in to help me, and she and the girl is at it like steam. I’m afeared that there stool’s terrible hard for you, Mr. Strange, sir!” broke off the widow, in condolence.
“It’s not as soft as velvet,” was the reply. “But I’m glad to oblige: and I am going out presently. Get my chop and tea up when you can.”
Mrs. Jinks disappeared; the hum continued. Whether the two parsons, as Mrs. Jinks surmised, felt “in their glory,” cannot be told: the ladies were certainly in theirs. These kettle-drums at Mr. Cattacomb’s were charmingly attractive.
When Mr. Strange did not return home for his chop at mid-day, he took it with his tea. His tray was yet before him when the kettle-drum trooped out to attend vespers. At least, the company who had formed the drum. The two reverend gentlemen hastened on together a little in advance; Miss Blake led the van behind; and curious Foxwood ran to its windows to see.
Mr. Strange, who had nothing particular on his hands or mind that evening, looked after them. Example is infectious. He felt an inclination to follow in their wake — for it had not been his good fortune yet to make one of the worshippers at St Jerome’s; he had never indulged himself with as much as a peep inside the place. Accordingly, Mr. Strange started, after some short delay, and gained the edifice.
The first object his eyes rested on, struck him as being as ludicrous as an imp at the play. It was Tom Pepp in a conical hat tipped with red, and a red cross extending down his white garmented back. Tom Pepp stood near the bell, ready to tinkle it at parts of the service. It may as well be stated — lest earnest disciples of new movements should feel or take offence — that the form and make of the services at St. Jerome’s were entirely Mr. Cattacomb’s own; invented by himself exclusively, and not copied from any other standard, orthodox or unorthodox. The description of it is taken from facts. Mr. Strange, standing at the back near to Tom Pepp, enjoyed full view of all: the ladies prostrate on the floor, actually prostrater some of them, the Reverend Guy facing them with the whites of his eyes turned up; Damon Puff on his knees, presenting his back to the room and giving every now and then a surreptitious stroke to his moustache. The detective had never seen so complete a farce in his life, as connected with religion. He thought the two reverend gentlemen might be shut up for a short term as mutinous lunatics, by way of receiving a little wholesome correction: he knew that if he had a daughter, he would shut her up as one, rather than she should make a spectacle of herself as these other girls were doing.
The services over, Tom Pepp set on at the bell to ring them out with all his might — for that was the custom. Most of them filed out; as did Mr. Damon Puff; and they went on their way. A few of them stopped in, for confession to Mr. Cattacomb.
It was growing dusk then. A train was just in, and had deposited some passengers at the station. One of them came along, walking quickly, as if in haste to get home. Happening to turn his head towards St. Jerome’s as he passed it, attracted by the bell, he saw there, rather to his surprise, standing just outside the door, Mr. Moore’s strong-minded sister. She peered at him in the twilight; she was no longer so quick of sight as she had been; and recognized Sir Karl Andinnian.
“What, is it you, Miss Diana!” he cried, stopping to hold out his hand. “Have you gone over to St. Jerome’s?”
“I’d rather go over to Rome, Sir Karl,” was the candid answer. “I may lapse to St. Jerome’s when I get childish perhaps, if it lasts so long. There’s no answering for any of us when the mind fails.”
Sir Karl laughed slightly. He saw before him the receding crowd turning down towards Foxwood village, and knew that vespers must be just over. The ringing of Tom Pepp’s bell would have told him that. It was clanging away just above Miss Diana’s head.
“You have been to vespers, then,” remarked Sir Karl again, almost at a loss what to say, and unable to get away until Miss Diana chose to release his hand.
“Yes, I have been to what they call vespers,” she rejoined tartly; “more shame for a woman of my sober years to say it, as connected with this place. Look at them, trooping on there, that Puff in the midst, who is softer than any apple-puff ever made yet!” continued Miss Diana, pointing her hand in the direction of the vanishing congregation. “They have gone; but there are five staying in for confession. Hark! Hark, Sir Karl! the folly is going to begin.”
A sweet, silvery-toned bell rang gently within the room, and the clanging bell of Mr. Pepp stopped at the signal. The Reverend Guy had gone into the confessional box, and all other sounds must cease.
“I should think they can hardly see to confess at this hour,” said Sir Karl jestingly.
“They light a tallow candle, I believe, and stick it in the vestry,” said Miss Diana. “Five of them are staying to-night, as I told you: I always count. They go in one at a time and the others wait their turn outside the vestry. Do you think I am going to let my nieces stay here alone to play at that fun, Sir Karl? No: and so I drag myself here every confessional night. One of them, Jemima, is always staying. She is a little fool.”
“It does not seem right,” mused Sir Karl.
“Right!” ejaculated Miss Diana in an angry tone, as if she could have boxed his ears for the mild word. “It is wrong, Sir Karl, and doubly wrong. I do not care to draw the curb-rein too tightly; they are not my own children, and might rebel; but as sure as they are living, if this folly of stopping behind to confess is to go on, I shall tell the doctor of it I think, Sir Karl — and you must excuse me for saying so to your face — that you might have done something before now, to put down the pantomime of this St. Jerome’s.”
“Only this very morning I was with St. Henry, asking him what I could do,” was the reply. “His opinion is, that it will cease of itself when the cold weather comes on.”
