CHAPTER XXX
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A CLOUD OF BLOOD.
“Who’s to tell her?” Sir Thomas Annesley, Mr. Jacobs at his heels, came flying into Levallion’s own den, where something told him Houghton would be. But there was another man beside Houghton, and the boy drew back at the sight of him, just as the man started forward.
“Why are you here? Haven’t you done mischief enough?” The young face was dreadful with its pinched nostrils and red eyes. “If you’d never come here, she’d never have come to this!”
“It’s true enough,” said Adrian Gordon grimly, as Houghton would have hushed the lad. “But, before God, Tommy, I believe my being here had nothing to do with it! I think you’ve got to look deeper than that for Levallion’s death, and outside! It seems to me that my only share in the business is to have made your sister a convenient scapegoat. And God knows that’s black enough.”
Tommy Annesley hid his face in his hands, and the tears oozed through his fingers.
“Don’t, lad, don’t!” said Houghton pitifully. “A coroner’s inquest means very little. Please God, we’ll find out who did it, long before the trial.”
“That’s just it,” hoarsely. “The trial! She’s got to stand up there innocent, and have the--every one”--desperately--“think her guilty. Can’t you see, Houghton, that every soul in the house has cleared themselves but her?”
“Every soul outside hasn’t, though,” Gordon said slowly. “And any jury but a set of prejudiced fools would have seen it.” He gently pushed away Jacobs, who was slobbering at his knee.
“Do you mean you know any one who was likely to have done it--who hated Levallion?” said Houghton bluntly.
“There were plenty,” answered Gordon, as Lacy had before him. “Who knows who that woman was who was hanging about? Or the man Tommy thought was I? And what became of those letters Lady Levallion thought were in Levallion’s pocket? They’re a small thing, perhaps, but suppose I hadn’t come down? Who was going to know that card of mine asking her to meet me wasn’t written that very morning? Whoever took those letters meant it to seem so,” emphatically.
“No one could have. Levallion--the body”--stammering--“was never left alone till the coroner came.”
“It was!” Tommy lifted his tear-stained face. “Didn’t you know? When the coroner came there wasn’t a soul in the room. You’d gone to Ravenel, the others had cleared off to the smoking-room. It was I took Aston in there, and the room was empty. Any one in the house might have gone in there. The hall was full of people, but there are three other doors to the drawing-room.”
“And any one out of it,” Gordon added obstinately. “Look here, Tommy, how could you think it was I Jacobs flew at that night in the wood? See him!” for Jacobs had lain down with his head on the speaker’s boot.
“It was the Norfolk jacket and the knickerbockers and the height,” wretchedly. “The other men were in the drawing-room--none of the servants were so tall--except Carrousel--and he has a beard! This man had only a mustache. I saw the line of his chin when he stood up and yelled.”
“As I should have been likely to yell on account of Jacobs!” scornfully. “Why on earth didn’t you tell some one what you saw, Tommy?”
“I’d have only said it was you! I did try to tell Levallion, but the second I spoke about the woman he shut me up. Lacy was there; Levallion never talked before servants. Oh!” he broke off wildly, “what’s the good of talking? Some one must go and tell Ravenel. Will they take her--to jail--till the assizes?” A hard sob broke his words.
“I don’t know,” Houghton muttered. “Perhaps bail”--but he knew quite well there was no bail for murder. He got up, for the boy was right. Some one must tell Lady Levallion.
“Damn that housemaid!” he broke out fiercely, standing with his hand on the door.
“Look here,” said Gordon quickly, “wait a moment. Don’t say anything like that outside; don’t say a word to frighten any of the servants.”
“Why?” Houghton looked at him without too much favor. He had certainly had nothing to do with the crime, but his stay in the house had every day added one to the letters that spelled “murderess” after Lady Levallion’s name.
“Because they’ve all given their evidence; they’re quite comfortable about none of them being implicated. They’ll talk among themselves and compare notes, and they may find out something. I sha’n’t allow one of them to leave.”
Houghton realized suddenly that it was the new Lord Levallion who stood before him.
“I forgot,” he said involuntarily, “you are master here now.”
“And I’d rather be a one-armed sandwich-man!” returned Adrian Gordon, with a bitter glance at the injured arm that had kept him in Levallion’s house. And the memory of that day brought back something; the unknown woman who had come to see if he were dead. There was only one woman in the world who could hope, however falsely, to gain by his dying.
“Hester Murray!” he thought sharply. “But of all women on earth she would be the least likely to be here. Levallion wouldn’t have had it.” And yet the thought clung obstinately.
“I’ll find out,” he said aloud, and Tommy looked up where he sat wan and exhausted.
“What?” he demanded. “I don’t see how any one can find out anything. We know all anybody knows.”
“We know all some one chooses us to know,” hardly. “We’re not beaten yet. Try and remember what that woman looked like whom Levallion told you was a kitchen-maid.”
“How do I know?” wretchedly. “I only saw her twice; both times it was dark. She had a cloak on with a hood, and was holding up a train. She may live right under our noses.”
“All the same, she’s our only chance.”
He shivered, and stirred the fire. For if he were wrong and that cloaked woman not Hester Murray, the chance was small. Beat his brains as he would, he could think of no one else who might profit by the death of Lord Levallion.
The clock struck six, and, like a blow, the sound struck on his heart, making him forget everything but the girl up-stairs. Houghton must be with her now; must be telling her what the jury had said. Houghton, an absolute stranger--while the man who should have been her husband dared not go near her; the man who should have sheltered her from all the world could do nothing but sit helpless while some one else spoke the very bitterest shame on earth in her ears.
“Nel, my Nel!” And if Adrian Gordon was silent, his spirits groaned within him.
Sylvia Annesley and her schemes had come between them once; then Levallion; and now, to the eyes of the world, a bar of blood they could not pass.
“Blood between us; love, my love!” the man said silently, behind his shut teeth. “Not while I’m alive or there’s a God above us. Somehow, somewhere, I mean to find the truth that’s going to set you clear--and clean! If I dare not go to you I can work for you; and if I can’t comfort you”--unconsciously he raised his right hand as some men do when they take an oath--“I’ll save you, if I have to take you out of Newgate!”
He raised his eyes and saw Houghton had come back.
“Well?” he said thickly.
“Very ill.” Houghton cast himself into a chair as if he could do no more. “She knew! That fool of a housemaid ran up screaming and told her, begging her to forgive her--if they hanged her! The French maid took the crazy fool by the ears and put her out. But----”
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
“What’s she doing--Ravenel?” Tommy was on his feet, pale as Levallion up-stairs.
“Nothing! Just sitting there like death. Go to her and see if you can make her cry. I couldn’t make her even seem to hear me.”
As the door closed behind the boy, Houghton turned to Adrian.
“It was to say good-by I sent him,” he said drearily. “The warrant has come to arrest her.”
“She sha’n’t go!” cried Gordon blackly; but he knew he was talking nonsense.
“There’s no choice! To-morrow you may--if you move heaven and earth and the stars in their course”--bitterly--“be able to bail her out again.”
He turned to the window because there were tears in his eyes, and so did not see that every trace of humanity had been wiped out of Adrian Gordon’s countenance, as in a voice the like of which Doctor Houghton had never heard, he called down the wrath of God on Levallion’s secret murderer.
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