CHAPTER II

.

AFTER THE TELLING OF THE NEWS.

"When, soon after my marriage," resumed Mr. Drelincourt, "I furnished the Cot--which, some years before, had been tenanted by my father's gamekeeper--and fitted up a couple of its rooms as a laboratory, I had a double object in view. First of all, I wanted a place where I could prosecute my experiments free from the interruptions and annoyances to which I was subjected at the Towers; and, secondly, because it would be a haven of refuge to which I could escape at any time when matters at home had become so insupportable that I felt I must get away from them for a while lest I should go mad.

"Well, five days ago I left the Towers and took up my quarters at the Cot. It was after a scene with my wife of more than ordinary violence. As you know, I some time ago made old Margery Trant a fixture at the Cot, so that she might be on the spot to look after my meals and what not. On previous occasions when I have made the place my temporary home, I have always been able to plunge into my experiments with a vast feeling of relief. Grateful to me was the sense of solitude and of isolation from all my kind. Even you, Rodd, never intruded upon me at such times.

"This time, however, I could not settle down to anything. My mind was upset as it had never been before. The discovery of Kate's treachery weighed me down like a hideous nightmare from which I could not free myself. For the first time my experiments had become distasteful to me. My laboratory was as a temple of despair. I spent my days out of doors, sometimes on horseback, at other times on foot, keeping as far as possible from the haunts of men, and only returning to the Cot to eat and sleep when mind and body alike refused to hold out any longer.

"It had been dark some hours when I got back last night. I had taken Favorita for a twenty miles' stretch across the downs, and she was as tired as I was. After supping on a biscuit and a glass of Madeira, I lay down, without undressing, on the couch in my study, and a few minutes later fell asleep. The next thing I knew was that I was broad awake--but where, think you? In the library at the Towers! Yes, so far as regarded any waking consciousness on my part, there was no perceptible interval of time between the moment of my closing my eyes in sleep at the Cot and that of my opening them at the Towers. But you have already surmised the truth. I had been walking in my sleep; a habit to which, you know full well, I have been more or less subject from my youth upward.

"There, then, I was, suddenly brought back to conscious life by the merest accident. In my sleep, in obedience to some somnambulistic impulse, I had unlocked and opened the old secretaire in the library in which are stored a number of family papers. In shutting down the lid, I had accidentally trapped my finger, and the pain thereby caused me had been sufficient to awake me. I stared around in an effort to collect my amazed faculties. Then the truth dawned upon me. Very similar experiences had been mine before, although not oftener than once or twice since my marriage. Of all that must have happened up stairs prior to the moment of my awaking I retain no faintest shadow of recollection.

"Presently I turned and left the house by the way I had entered it--that is to say, by the little side door in the north wing, which the butler has orders to leave unbolted and merely locked when I am from home, so that I can let myself in at any hour of the day or night by means of my pass key. So far as I am aware, not a creature saw me either enter the house or leave it. And then, after a while, I found myself here."

A silence ensued, which Roden Marsh was the first to break.

"I wholly fail to see how, in the eye of the law, a man can be held to be even partially accountable for anything that may happen, or any deed he may commit, while in a state of somnambulism."

Drelincourt lighted another cigarette before speaking. Then he said: "But where are my witnesses to prove I was in that state when this morning's tragedy took place?"

"For the matter of that, where are the witnesses to prove you had any hand at all in the affair?"

"I know of none."

"Then, as it seems to me, all you and I have to do is simply to keep our own counsel, and let the affair work itself out as best it may."

To this Drelincourt apparently found nothing to reply.

Roden lapsed into a brown study.

"No," he said, after a pause, with a shake of his head, "neither legally nor morally can you be held accountable for this morning's work."

Drelincourt flicked the ash off his cigarette.

"And I am just as convinced that if the crime is brought home to me, the law will find me guilty and hang me in due course. What judge or jury would for one moment give credence to my plea of somnambulism? It would be brushed aside as an attempt, at once foolish and futile, to escape the consequences of my act. Pray disabuse your mind on that point, my dear Rodd. And now, as regards the moral guilt of the act. If the notion of my wife's death, and of the vast difference such an event would make to me, had not been a factor--embryonic, if you will--in my mind, if it had not found receptivity there, would it ever have evolved itself in action in the way it has done?"

"For all that, a man who, while sleep walking, kills another cannot be deemed guilty of murder," protested Rodd dogmatically.

"Undoubtedly he can, and ought to be so deemed morally; because, believe me, he must already have been guilty in thought--although not necessarily in intention--and, under such circumstances as we are considering, the deed itself is merely the natural outcome of the rudimentary idea."

Again Rodd shook his head. Evidently he was not open to conviction.

"Had we not better make our way to the Towers without further delay?" he asked. "It is known that I came in search of you, and your prolonged absence may excite suspicion."

Drelincourt turned on him with one of his peculiar smiles.

"Why hurry ourselves, my dear Rodd? Let the first scare get itself over; we shall be in excellent time for the sequel. What a lovely nook is this! I could linger here for hours. Look how that shaft of sunlight quivers through the crowns of yonder elms. But thou hast no eye for such effects, Rodd; thou art woefully lacking in artistic insight. See! a squirrel. What a pretty rascal it is?"

Roden had risen. "I am waiting for you, Felix," he said coldly. "But perhaps you wish me to leave you here and go back alone."

Although Roden Marsh addressed his foster brother as "Felix" when they were alone, in the presence of others he always spoke of and to him as "Mr. Drelincourt."

"What a restless, weariful mortal thou art," said the latter. "Come, then, let us go!"

But scarcely had they taken half a dozen steps before they both came to a stand. Some one in the distance was calling Mr. Drelincourt by name.

"Unless I'm mistaken, that is the voice of Dixon, the groom," said Rodd. "He has probably been sent in search of you. Let me go to him while you wait here, and ascertain whether he's the bearer of any fresh news."

A moment later he had plunged into the depths of the wood.

"I am afraid that in no case will the next few days prove pleasant ones for the master of Wyvern Towers," murmured Drelincourt, as he stood where the other had left him. "_Eh, bien!_ the first act of the drama is over; soon the curtain will rise on the second. I am as curious as if I were merely a looker on to know how the plot will develop itself, and to what extent it will involve F. D. Will it prove to be merely a nine days' wonder and there end? By this time next year it may be merely an old wife's tale, to tell o' nights by the chimney corner. Or the _dénouement_ may be something altogether different; a tolling bell, a crossbeam, and a dangling rope. Those who live will see."

He turned and began to pace the glade slowly, his hands crossed behind his back. As he walked, his lips moved.

"Oh Madeline, Madeline, could I but bring back the hour I met you here, when, soft and low, with many a blush, you told me that you loved me! If I could but wake up and find the time between then and now nothing more than a hideous nightmare fancy of my own! In vain! It is no wild imagining of a disordered brain, but a baleful reality, with far reaching consequences which no human eye can foresee. But here comes Rodd, red faced and out of breath. What a pity it is--and how futile--to take things so seriously as he does."

"It _was_ Dixon, as I thought," exclaimed the other as he came up. "Much has happened since I left the Towers. It has been discovered that Mrs. Drelincourt's jewel case has been rifled, and, by Mr. Ormsby's orders, Gumley has been arrested on suspicion of being both the thief and--and----"

"The murderer. Why fight shy of the word, my dear Rodd? 'Tis always best to call things by their right names. But who is this Gumley that you speak of?"

"An ill conditioned, saucy sort of fellow who was taken on about a fortnight ago to help in the gardens. He and Mrs. Drelincourt had some words the other day, when she lashed him across the face with her riding whip."

"Just the sort of thing Kate would do. But this rifling of the jewel case--and last night, too! The coincidence, if one may call it such, is somewhat remarkable."

"Had we not better get back to the Towers with as little delay as possible?"

"Under the circumstances, it may perhaps be as well to do so. And so this fellow--this Gumley--has been arrested by James Ormsby's orders! I have always regarded Ormsby as a meddlesome fool; now I'm sure he's one."

"We have yet to learn under what circumstances the arrest was effected."

"True for you, my youthful Solomon. Well, let us be gone. But the coincidence, Rodd, the coincidence--the strangeness of the two things happening together!"

Roden Marsh did not reply, but led the way out of the glade. Drelincourt, who was following him, on reaching the edge of it, turned, and lifting his hat, said softly: "Adieu, Madeline!"

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