CHAPTER XIV

.

WITH ALL SPEED.

On quitting Fairlawn, which they did together after their interview with Drelincourt, Sir John Musgrave and Mr. Ormsby parted at the park gates, each going his own way. The baronet took the road to Sunbridge, and, picking up a brother magistrate en route, drove with him direct to the jail. There Roden Marsh was at once summoned before them, and having been severely lectured for his insane act, was forthwith ordered to be set at liberty. Mr. Drelincourt's voluntary confession that he, and he alone, was the guilty person obviated all necessity for Rodd's further confinement.

He left the jail fearing the worst, his heart tortured with anxiety of the most poignant kind. His proffered sacrifice had been contemned, and, so far as he could judge, had merely been the means of precipitating a catastrophe to avert which he would willingly have given his life's blood. His one burning desire just now was to reach Fairlawn with all possible speed.

That his being there would avail to dissuade Felix from his rash purpose he greatly doubted, but not willingly would he throw away the faintest chance. Perhaps, even now, he might be too late!

The jail at Sunbridge was little more than a stone's cast from the railway station, and no sooner was the grim portal shut behind him than he hurried off to the latter, with the intention of hiring a cab in which to be driven to Fairlawn. It was growing dark by this time, and the station lamps were being lighted one by one.

A train had arrived a few minutes earlier, and every cab but one had been engaged. Towards this one he now made his way, but only reached it in time to see the door banged by the driver, and to find that it had already an occupant. With a muttered anathema, he glanced inside the cab, and then, not a little to his surprise, saw that the person about to be driven off in it was none other than Mrs. Jenwyn.

The same instant it struck him that if her destination was Wyvern Towers, the one cab would serve the purpose of both. It appeared that the recognition had been mutual, and, in point of fact, Mrs. Jenwyn was the first to speak.

"Oh, Mr. Marsh, is that you?" she began, addressing him through the cab window. "I am very glad to see you, because you can perhaps inform me whether I am likely to find Mr. Drelincourt at Fairlawn."

"I have every reason to believe you will find him there. But--pardon the question--are you bound for Fairlawn?"

"That is my destination. I have just arrived from London, where I have been staying for the last few days, and wish to see Mr. Drelincourt, and with as little delay as possible, about a matter of very special importance."

"I, too, am bound for Fairlawn--and in a hurry," said Roden, hiding the surprise he could not help feeling. "So, as there is not another cab left on the stand, if you will kindly allow me to share yours, you will be rendering me a great service."

"Why, certainly. I shall be very glad of your company, Mr. Marsh, and we can talk as we go along."

So Roden, having given his orders to the driver, got inside, and away they rattled; but all talking was out of the question till they had left the paved streets of the town behind them, and were well out on the quiet country road.

Then said Mrs. Jenwyn: "My errand to Fairlawn is a very singular one, as I have no doubt you will admit, Mr. Marsh, when I have explained to you what it is."

"I am all curiosity," replied Roden, which was not far from being the truth.

"It is the fact, is it not, that a man named Gumley is lying under sentence of death in Sunbridge jail as being the supposed murderer of the first Mrs. Drelincourt?"

"The fact is as you state it. But why do you say as being the 'supposed' murderer of Mrs. Drelincourt?"

"Because I am in a position to prove that the man in question had nothing whatever to do with the crime for which he has been convicted, and it is with the view of laying my evidence to that effect before Mr. Drelincourt that I am now on my way to Fairlawn."

For a little while sheer amazement held Rodd speechless. But presently came a question which, under the circumstances, was almost inevitable: "You have indeed surprised me, Mrs. Jenwyn; but if you are in a position to prove Gumley's innocence, you are, perhaps, equally in a position to bring the real criminal's guilt home to him?"

"I am."

Again Rodd's thoughts held him silent for a little while. Then he said tentatively: "Mr. Drelincourt----" and then he was silent.

"What of him?"

"You say that you are on your road to see him about this very matter of Gumley's?"

"That is so."

"Then you do not know, you cannot have heard, that this very afternoon, In order to save Gumley's life, Mr. Drelincourt gave himself up as the murderer of his wife!"

"Mr. Drelincourt his wife's murderer? No! No!" The words were uttered almost in a shriek.

"That is what he has confessed to being."

"Then he has confessed to a falsehood. It is not true, I tell you. I can prove it. Mr. Drelincourt had no more hand in his wife's death than you or I had."

Rodd pinched his arm as if to convince himself that he was really awake. Was Mrs. Jenwyn in her right mind? Was she not laboring under one of those strange hallucinations to which some persons seem constitutionally liable? Perhaps she would tell him, in addition, that she herself was really the criminal!

Was there a word of truth in what she had just asseverated with such extraordinary emphasis? He greatly doubted it. And yet if there should be! The mere thought of such a thing turned him dizzy.

A burning curiosity got the better of his discretion. "The real criminal was----" He paused for a moment, as if expecting Mrs. Jenwyn to fill up the hiatus.

"Pardon me, Mr. Marsh," she said, "but what I have to reveal must first of all be told Mr. Drelincourt. When that has been done, the affair will be out of my hands. But you, in your turn, can tell me something, provided there is no objection to your doing so. By what circumstances was Mr. Drelincourt influenced in coming to his strange determination to charge himself with the commission of a crime of which he is wholly guiltless?"

Rodd told himself that, although she had not answered his question, there was no reason why he should not answer hers.

"In early life Mr. Drelincourt was addicted to walking in his sleep, and it was while he was in one of his fits of somnambulism that he believed himself to have been guilty of the death of his wife. I need not trouble you with the details of the evidence which seemed to bring the crime irresistibly home to him; it will be enough to remark that both to him and me--for all the particulars of the affair have been known to me from the first--it appeared absolutely conclusive. And yet, Mrs. Jenwyn, you now assert, and in the most positive terms, that Mr. Drelincourt's belief had absolutely no foundation of fact!"

"I do assert it, and at the proper time and place I shall be prepared to prove my words."

Roden Marsh sank back in his seat with a great sigh of contentment. However amazing it might seem, he could no longer doubt that Mrs. Jenwyn was in a position to carry out all that she had undertaken to do. Her words and manner were convincing.

About the details of the story she had come prepared to tell he cared little; it was enough for him to know that the dread burden which had weighed upon them for so many years would at length be lifted off the shoulders of his beloved foster brother, never to be reimposed. With the question of whose shoulders it was about to be transferred to he did not trouble himself at all.

But a moment later he cried out: "Shall I get there in time? Shall I arrive before it is to late?" They were questions which lit a flame of torment within him.

He took out his repeater and struck the hour. Then, protruding his head and half his body out of the cab window, he shouted to the man on the box: "Drive hard--drive fast! There will be a sovereign for you if you get there in a quarter of an hour."

The driver gave a whoop and cracked his whip. Never had the old horse in the fly been driven at such a pace before.

##