CHAPTER XIV

Sight at Last

It was some minutes before Evelyn gathered her thoughts together after Humblethorne’s parting remark: it startled her into fresh speculation just when she thought she could at last put the whole dreadful business firmly from her mind. Then resentment came to her rescue—

“How like that little man!” she thought. “He will never own that he has been hopelessly wrong: he began by believing John did it and he still believes it; well, what does it matter? He can’t bring a shred of evidence to support what isn’t true.” With that she made a great effort to throw off the fear he had left with her.

She looked into the room she used with Celia, hoping to find her friend and tell her what had taken place. The room was empty, and Evelyn remembered that Celia was sitting with her mother. They would both have to know and she had better go and tell them at once for fear of their hearing the news suddenly from a less sympathetic source. However broken, it was bound to be a terrible shock to Lady Penterton: Fairlie had been a servant to her and her father for over forty years and there was a very real and deep attachment between them. It was an unpleasant task, but she obviously could not avoid it.

Reluctantly she went along the passage to Lady Penterton’s boudoir. No one was there, and she went on to the bedroom she had visited with the first news of the tragedy: now she had to complete the tale. She knocked lightly and entered; Celia was sitting in an armchair reading in a low voice to her mother who was lying back in her bed, wan and listless. As Evelyn looked at the fine, weary face, Celia’s description of her mother the day before as ‘very quiet but somehow very old’ returned to her mind with vivid force.

“Here’s Evelyn, mother,” said Celia, breaking off from her reading.

“How are you feeling to-day, Aunt Eleanor?” said Evelyn, bending over the bed and kissing the old lady. “I thought you would be in your boudoir.”

“I meant to get up, dear,” she replied in a dull voice.

“She did get as far as the loggia yesterday,” said Celia.

“Yes, the sun tempted me, but it tried me too much.” Lady Penterton sighed and relapsed into silence. For a minute more Evelyn sat, stroking tenderly the wrinkled hand.

“I have something to tell you both,” she said at length. “I am afraid it will distress you. But you will have to know and it is better that I should tell you than any one else.”

Lady Penterton turned her head wearily on the pillow towards her, while Celia laid down her book with a sharp intake of the breath.

“I have stumbled more by chance than any skill on things the detectives happened to overlook; they had a certain idea in their heads,” she glanced across at Celia to try and read whether she had told her mother of John, and received a quick negative shake of the head, “and perhaps that blinded them to anything else; I don’t know. But I found footmarks and finger-prints they had not seen; and I followed them up.” She paused, uncertain how best to break the conclusion of that following up.

Lady Penterton’s agitation at this talk of the tragedy was evident.

“My dear child,” she exclaimed, her hand tightening nervously on Evelyn’s, “what an extraordinary thing for you to do!”

“Yes, perhaps it was,” admitted Evelyn, “but I didn’t stop to think about that.”

“Oh, what did you find? How dreadful it all is!”

“I found,” said Evelyn slowly, unwillingly, “that it was done by Fairlie.”

“By Fairlie!” uttered the old lady, turning so white that Evelyn thought she was going to faint.

“It is dreadful, I know, but, when charged with it, he confessed.”

Celia started up, crying in amazement, “Fairlie!” and Lady Penterton with a deep sigh, fell back, her fingers relaxed and she lay white and still.

Both girls, terribly alarmed, bent over her; Evelyn ran to the washstand for cold water and then said quickly to Celia, “Send for the doctor! I’ll attend to her.” But as she spoke Lady Penterton recovered herself, her lips moved, and then she said faintly, “Fairlie! Fairlie confessed! Evelyn, was that what you said? No,” to Celia who was slipping out, “stay with me; I don’t want any one.”

“I know it is terrible news for you, Aunt Eleanor,” Evelyn said very gently; “but there is no doubt about it, I’m afraid. He did it by flinging down the statuette of the little dancing girl that stands on the bracket by the stairs; you know the one I mean.” She saw a sign of understanding on Lady Penterton’s lips, as she lay rigidly still with eyes closed, and continued, “He left his finger-marks on the pedestal and a footprint underneath. Why he did it I hardly know; he doesn’t really know himself. It was a mad impulse, which he says he can’t explain.”

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Celia, pale with emotion. “Oh, how dreadful!”

Lady Penterton lay, only her lips moving nervously, inaudibly, while the two girls watched her with anxiety. At last she opened her eyes; her lips closed tightly and it was obvious that she was making a great effort to regain the self-possession from which she had been so startlingly shaken.

“I should like to see him,” she said.

“Oh, mother!” exclaimed Celia in protest.

“He has been with me most of my life,” answered Lady Penterton simply.

“I felt the same,” said Evelyn in a low voice to Celia; “it will distress her more if she doesn’t.” Then to Lady Penterton, “I will fetch him.”

“Thank you, dear.” Lady Penterton closed her eyes again with a little sigh as of a weariness almost intolerable.

Evelyn went downstairs and found Humblethorne and Birts on the point of departure with Fairlie in their custody.

“I have just been with Lady Penterton and told her,” she said; “she wishes to see Fairlie. May she? He has been with her so long she feels she cannot let him go without saying a few words to him.”

“Well,” said Humblethorne, “it’s not exactly regular, but I don’t see that there can be any harm in stretching a point.”

“It can do no good,” said Fairlie. “I do not wish to see her ladyship in these altered circumstances.”

“Oh, Fairlie,” exclaimed the girl, “it will distress her so much more if she doesn’t. Do this for her at least.”

Fairlie kept his eyes upon the ground and hesitated a long while. “It can do no good,” he repeated doggedly.

“I am afraid she will be really ill unless she is given in to in this little way. It need only be for a moment.”

“Well, for a moment, Miss Evelyn.” He straightened his bowed shoulders. “But I am sure you will appreciate how painful it is for me.”

“Yes, yes, I know, but just for a moment. She will feel less unhappy afterwards.”

He signified that he assented, and the four of them went upstairs to the bedroom. Evelyn knocked and entered first. “He is here, Aunt Eleanor,” she said, “but he did not wish to come.”

“Fairlie, Fairlie!” cried the old lady, sitting up in her emotion with a sudden accession of strength. “What does this mean?”

He remained obstinately silent; before the mistress he had served so long and faithfully it was evident that he found it difficult to maintain the air of stolid, half-resigned, half-defiant gloom which had settled down upon him like a cloak; he shifted uneasily from one foot to another, he kept his eyes on the carpet, and his breath came irregularly.

“What a servant, what a friend you have always been, Fairlie!” continued the old lady in the strained, high-pitched voice of intense feeling, looking at him with wide eyes which glistened with tears. “In the happy years before I married I remember you so well; in the long, dark years afterwards you have been, oh, like a shield, standing by ready to help always. And now!” Her gaze faltered and wandered from the bowed, uneasy figure until it met Humblethorne’s, and she went on, “You do not get servants like that nowadays; he has been with me over forty years.” Her eyes left Humblethorne and rested on Evelyn. “How clever you have been, Evelyn!” she exclaimed, as if a new thought had entered her weary, restless brain. “I do not understand at all how you made it out. Very clever—but quite wrong!”

“Wrong!” cried Evelyn, astounded.

“Yes, dear,” said Lady Penterton. “Fairlie didn’t kill Sir Roger,” she paused for the fraction of a second as she looked at him: “I did!”

On all but one of her audience this announcement, delivered with such rapidity that none could forecast the direction in which her apparently haphazard remarks were tending, came with the effect of a thunderclap. “You!” they cried in a single voice of stupefaction—but on Fairlie the effect was very different. He started forward in the attempt to check her speech, but was too late; then, seizing her hand, he pressed it to his lips as he cried in tones of acutest distress, “Oh, my lady, my lady, why did you speak? I would have died, willingly I would.”

“I know; I believe you,” she answered, bending over him with a rare tenderness; “but I could not allow that.”

“I don’t understand,” cried Evelyn, finding her voice at last. “You killed him, Aunt Eleanor, you? But——”

“I will tell you all about it,” said Lady Penterton, still looking at Fairlie and paying very little attention to anybody else. “I never meant not to, only it was so terrible and got harder instead of easier. It is very simple; it was quite an accident. Oh, I did not mean to; did you think I did, Fairlie?”

“I didn’t know, my lady. I couldn’t see very clearly; it was too dark.”

“Where were you?”

“Just inside the dining-room, my lady.”

“Oh, I see: that explains it.” She leant back and closed her eyes.

“I think,” said Humblethorne, after waiting several moments for her to go on, “that we must hear everything now. I never thought Fairlie was speaking the truth before.”

“But I was,” returned Fairlie, rising and facing the inspector; “up to a point, that is. Everything I told you was as it happened up to the time Sir Roger was left alone in the hall.”

“What happened then? The truth, this time.”

“Of course,” replied Fairlie with dignity. “I saw her ladyship look over the stairs, wondering, I suppose, what was happening: the cigarette box made a bit of noise hitting the wall and falling, naturally, and I suppose her ladyship heard it.” He glanced in a respectful way at Lady Penterton, but she was lying back as if exhausted and made no sign. “Sir Roger stood there, muttering curses under his breath and waving his stick, and I saw her ladyship lean forward; the banisters creaked and Sir Roger looked up and then something fell down and hit him on the forehead. Her ladyship gave a little cry and stood there wringing her hands, and then after a minute she came downstairs. She stood as if she didn’t dare go actually to him; I think even then she was afraid of him and presently she made a shuddering sound—I can’t describe it any differently—I saw her pick up the statuette in a kind of wondering way and then she went upstairs as if she was terrified. When she was at the top I saw her stop suddenly. She was looking at what she had caught hold of in her hands; I could see she didn’t know how it got there. She put it down and stood, holding her elbow as if it hurt her and shaking in a kind of way as if she didn’t know what she was doing, and then she gave a dreadful gasp and I could hear her sobbing as she went along to her room. It was terrible for me to hear her ladyship like that. Then I acted just as I told you: I was afraid there would be stains on the statuette and that it wasn’t put back proper.”

He stopped and looked at Lady Penterton, who raised herself up on one elbow and gazed at him.

“If you had only told me you were there,” she said, “how much better it would have been! Oh, the awfulness of that silent hall!” She shuddered convulsively.

“Tell us everything, my lady,” said Humblethorne.

She did not seem at first to hear; it was some minutes before she could gain control of herself and summon up the resolution to speak.

“It is very simple,” she said at last, tremblingly. “I was reading in my boudoir later than usual—the book was interesting—and I was just thinking of going to bed when I heard my husband’s voice raised in anger in the hall. At first I tried to take no notice: it was,” she paused and looked piteously at Fairlie before continuing, “it was not uncommon. But it went on and at last I came out to listen. He was standing at the foot of the stairs calling some one names—I could not see whom and no one answered.”

Humblethorne shot a searching glance at Evelyn, who said in a whisper, “She does not know. She has not been told.”

“The silence seemed to infuriate my husband—he was, I am afraid, like that”—went on Lady Penterton, oblivious of this by-play, “he raised his stick and cried out some threatening words. The person—it must have been some one come on business, and my husband hated being disturbed in that way, here—made a movement and then I saw something bright hit the wall, and fall with a clatter, I don’t quite know what it was, and then I heard steps of some one going away. My husband remained where he was, but his anger was terrible to see. It frightened me; I leant against the balusters, trembling, and they made a noise. My husband looked up and saw me; I leaned over to speak to him and I knocked against the statuette—I have the mark on my elbow now—I was trembling so that I couldn’t catch it and it fell.”

She stopped, breathless, in terrible agitation. Celia went to her, took her hand and held it in silence, and in a minute she went on again more calmly.

“I ought to have told somebody at once, of course I ought. If I had known Fairlie was there, I would have called to him. But there seemed to be no one. I listened and could not hear a sound. I came down and called to my husband in a whisper, but he did not answer and I was afraid. Then I don’t know what happened—I don’t remember anything clearly: I found myself at the top of the stairs with that dreadful statuette in my hands. I could not think: I don’t really remember what I did; I was terrified and I hurried to my room. I had lent my maid to Miss Penterton: there was no one there. My mind was making strange patterns and it was difficult to see: I got to bed, I do not remember how. And then I could think, and the worst was I could not, I could not cry; I tried to, but I could not. I suppose I was too terrified. It was such a dreadful end to his life, that he should have died like that whilst he was so angry. It was so dreadful that it should have been through me, his wife. I have tried so hard always, and then this happened. If I had been a bad wife, I should not have minded so much; but I have tried always to be patient. And then you came,” addressing Evelyn, “and told me he had been found. Oh, what a relief that was! But I could not tell you then. I did not care about any one finding out; I did not care about anything, but I could not tell any one; it was too dreadful. Only when you told me it was Fairlie and he had confessed—I saw then he was trying to save me, as he has tried all my married life, and I had to tell.”

She fell silent and Humblethorne was just about to speak when a voice was heard outside, a rapid knock shook the door, which was flung open and John Penterton entered. His glance swept the company with surprise and, encountering Humblethorne, took on a vague recognition, but his whole interest was with his mother, who gave a sudden, wild cry, “John! my boy, my boy!”

She stretched out her arms to him and he went straight to them.

“I did not know any one was with you, mother,” he said as soon as he could speak. “I was told you were in your bedroom and came straight up. I saw the awful news in the paper, and started as soon as I could.”

“Didn’t you get my letter?” cried Celia in surprise.

“No; I have had no letter,” he answered. “But I saw I must come here at once. It was obvious from the account that it was the only thing I could do to clear myself as I had been here that night.”

“As you had been here, John!” cried the old lady in a voice rising almost to a scream. “Was it you? Was it you down there? Merciful heavens, why wasn’t I told? Oh, my boy, they might have suspected you!”

Humblethorne had no longer the least doubt that he had now heard the whole truth of the mysterious tragedy: the old lady’s tears of welcome and joy at the sudden appearance of her son had dispelled from it the last uncertainty. He rose to the occasion now. “No one, my lady,” he said with a grand air, “had any real reason to do that.” He opened the door and, summoning the agape Birts with his eye, said as he passed through, “You will wish to be alone now with him, no doubt, my lady.” Birts and Fairlie followed him, and Evelyn also left brother and sister to explain everything to one another and to their mother.

“If you don’t mind taking a tip from me, Miss Temple,” she heard Humblethorne saying in her ear as they went along the passage, “you have a real gift, but you make one mistake.”

“What is that?” she asked without the least interest.

“In thinking that there can be only one explanation of any set of facts,” he replied. “Now I have had years of experience and I know that the same facts can often be explained in several different ways. And you see now that I’m right.”

“Yes,” she answered slowly, “I see now: it is wonderful to see at last, isn’t it?”

The End

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

This transcription follows the text of the 1917 edition published by Longmans, Green and Co., with the exception of the following changes, made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors.

* One occurrence of “Inspecter” has been changed to “Inspector”. * An extraneous quotation mark has been deleted.