"I wish you to understand nothing of the sort. The position is--in its essence--melodrama; but do let us make it as little melodramatic as we conveniently can. Someone must suffer for the--blunder. It may as well be me. Why not?"

"Do you wish me--seriously--to believe that it was not you who--blundered?"

"Of course I blundered--and I've kept on blundering ever since. One blunder generally does lead to another, don't you know. Come--Miss Arnott"--each time, as she noticed, there was a perceptible pause before he p.r.o.nounced the name to which she still adhered--"matters have reached a stage when, at any moment, events may be expected to move quickly. Your first business must be to get that drawer open--key or no key--and let me have that knife. You may send it by parcel post if you like. Anyhow, only let me have it. And, at latest, by tomorrow night.

Believe me, moments are becoming precious. By the way, I hope it hasn't been--cleaned."

"No, it hasn't been cleaned."

"That would have been to commit a cardinal error. In an affair of this sort blood-stains are the things we want; the _pieces de conviction_ which judge and jury most desire. Give me the knife--my knife--that did the deed, with the virginal blood-stains thick upon it. Let it be properly discovered by a keen-nosed constable in an ostentatious hiding-place, and the odds are a hundred to one as to what the verdict will be. A hundred? a million! I a.s.sure you that I already feel the cravat about my neck." Hugh Morice put his hand up to his throat with a gesture which made Miss Arnott shiver. "Only, I do beg of you, lose no time. Get that drawer open within the hour, and let me have my hunting-knife before you have your dinner. Let me entreat you to grasp this fact clearly. At any moment Jim Baker may be out of Winchester Gaol; someone will have to take his place. That someone must be me."

CHAPTER XXV

THE TWO MAIDS

After Hugh Morice had left her, Miss Arnott had what was possibly the worst of all her bad half hours. The conviction of his guilt had been so deeply rooted in her mind that it required something like a cataclysm to disturb its foundations. She had thought that nothing could have shaken it; yet it had been shaken, and by the man himself.

As she had listened to what he had been saying, an impression had been taking hold of her, more and more, that she had misjudged him. If so, where was she herself standing? A dreadful feeling had been stealing on her that he genuinely believed of her what she had believed of him. If such was the case, what actually was her position.

Could she have done the thing which he believed her to have done? It was not only, moreover, what he believed; there were others. An array of witnesses was gathering round her, pointing with outstretched fingers. There was Jim Baker--it seemed that he was honestly persuaded that, with his own eyes, he had seen her kill her husband. So transparent was his honesty that he had succeeded--whether intentionally or not she did not clearly understand--in imparting his faith to the indurated lawyer to such a degree, that he had actually thrown her money back at her, as if it had been the price of blood. She had little doubt that if her own retainers were polled, and forced to vote in accordance with the dictates of their consciences, merely on the strength of the evidence they believed themselves to be already in possession of, they would bring her in as guilty. She had had this feeling dimly for some time--she had it very clearly then.

And now she was walking in her sleep. That thing of which she had read and heard, but never dreamt to be--a somnambulist. It seemed that her conscience drove her out at dead of night to revisit--unwittingly--the scene of the crime which stained her soul.

Could that be the interpretation of the stories which Mrs Forrester had told her? and Hugh Morice? She had been seen, it would appear, by half the countryside, clad--how? wandering--conscience-driven--on what errand?

The more she thought, however, of the tale which Briggs the postman had retailed to Mrs Forrester, not to speak of Hugh Morice's strange narrative--the more she doubted--the more she had to doubt. They might have the evidence of their own eyes, but it seemed to her that she had evidence which was at least equally conclusive. It was incredible--impossible that she could have tramped through the rain and the mire, among the trees and the bushes, in the fashion described, and yet have found no traces of her eccentric journeyings either on her clothes or on her person. But in that matter measures could--and should--be taken. She would soon learn if there was any truth in the tales so far as they had reference to her. Evans should be installed in her room that night as watchman. Then, if she attempted to get out of bed while fast asleep, the question would be settled on the spot. The question of the knife--Hugh Morice's knife--was a graver one. But as regards that also steps should be promptly taken. Whether it should be returned to its owner as he suggested, or retained in her possession, or disposed of otherwise. These were problems which required consideration. In the meanwhile, she would have it out of its hiding-place at once. She went upstairs to force open that wardrobe drawer. So soon as she entered her bedroom she perceived that she had been forestalled, and that, in consequence, a lively argument was going on. The disputants were two--her own maid, Evans, and Wilson, the housemaid, who had been supposed to have been in part responsible for the disappearance of the key. Miss Arnott was made immediately conscious--even before she opened the door--that the pair were talking at the top of their voices. Evans's was particularly audible. She was pouring forth on to her fellow-servant a flood of language which was distinctly the reverse of complimentary.

So occupied, indeed, were they by the subject under discussion that, until Miss Arnott announced her presence, they were not conscious that she had come into the room.

Their young mistress paused on the threshold, listening, with feelings which she would have found it difficult to a.n.a.lyse, to some of the heated observations which the disputants thought proper to fling at each other. She interrupted Evans in the middle of a very warmly coloured harangue.

"Evans, what is the meaning of this disturbance? and of the extraordinary language you are using?"

The maid, though evidently taken by surprise by the advent of her mistress, showed very few of the signs of shame and confusion which some might have considered would have become a person in her position.

Apparently she was much too warm to concern herself, at anyrate for the moment, with matters of etiquette. She turned to Miss Arnott a flushed and angry face, looking very unlike the staid and decorous servant with whom that young lady was accustomed to deal. Hot words burst from her lips,--

"That there Wilson had the key all the time. I knew she had."

To which Wilson rejoined with equal disregard of ceremonial usages,--

"I tell you I hadn't! Don't I tell you I hadn't! At least, I didn't know that I had, not till five minutes ago."

Evans went on, wholly ignoring her colleague's somewhat singular disclaimer,--

"Then if she didn't use it to unlock your drawer with--your private drawer--and to take liberties with everything that was inside it. I daresay if I hadn't come and caught her she'd have walked off with the lot. And then to have the face to brazen it out!"

To which Wilson, in a flame of fury,--

"Don't you dare to say I'd have taken a single thing, because I won't have it. I'm no more a thief than you are, nor perhaps half so much, and so I'll have you know. You're a great deal too fond of calling names, you are; but if you call me a thief I'll pay you for it. You see!"

Evans turned again to her adversary, eager for a continuance of the fray.

"If you weren't going to take them what did you go to the drawer for?"

"I tell you I went to the drawer to see if it was the key.

"Why didn't you bring the key to me?"

"I would have brought it, if you'd given me a chance."

"You would have brought it! Didn't I catch you--"

Miss Arnott thought she had heard enough; she interposed.

"Will you be so good as to be still, both of you, and let me understand what is the cause of this disgraceful scene. Evans, has the key of the drawer been found?"

"Yes, miss, it has. It was never lost; she had it all the time, as I suspected."

"I didn't have it, miss--leastways, if I did, I didn't know it, not till just now."

"Explain yourself, Wilson. Has or has not the key been in your possession?"

"It's like this, miss; it must somehow have slipped inside my dress that morning when I was making your bed."

"She'll explain anything!"

This was the resentful Evans.

"I'll tell the truth anyhow, which is more than you do."

Again their mistress interposed.

"Evans, will you allow Wilson to tell her story in her own way. Wilson, you forget yourself. On the face of it, your story is a lame one. What do you mean by saying that the key of my wardrobe drawer slipped into your dress? Where was it that it was capable of such a singular proceeding?"

"That's more than I can tell you, miss. I can only say that just now when I was taking down a skirt which I haven't worn since I don't know when, it felt heavy, and there in the hem on one side--it's a broad hem, miss, and only tacked--there was a key, though how it got there I haven't a notion."

"Of course not!"

This was Evans. Miss Arnott was in time to prevent a retort.

"Evans! Well, Wilson, what did you do then?"

"I came with it to Evans."

The lady's-maid was not to be denied.

"That's a falsehood, anyhow. You came with it to me! I do like that!"