"So so," thought I, "you wanted to fasten yourself upon me with the dodge of knowing my friends, did you? It won't do, my fine fellow;"

and I determined to give my brother-in-law a hint that his wife's "last treasure-trove" would need watching. But I found no opportunity; and when I inquired for Mr. de Vos later in the evening, I heard he had gone away, feeling very unwell. Said I to myself, "He'll be worse when he meets me again." I little recked the words then, or what they might import.

It was a beautiful August night when our party broke up; and resisting my sister's wish that I should sleep there, I determined to enjoy a moonlight walk home, smoke a cigar, and think over a difficult case I had just then in hand. My nearest way into town from Elinor's house was down Swain's Lane and round by the cemetery; it was a lonely, ghostly kind of walk, not tempting on a dark winter's night; but with a brilliant harvest-moon overhead, a stout stick, and myself standing six feet without shoes, I feared neither man nor ghost. The tombstones looked white and ghastly enough in the bright moonlight, and the trees cast their heavy shadows across my path, whilst their tops were stirred by a gentle soughing breeze. I had pa.s.sed the cemetery, and was rapidly nearing the end of the lane, which turns into the high-road by the Duke of St. Alban's public-house, of omnibus notoriety, when I fancied I heard the sound of voices pitched high, as if {448} in some angry dispute. I took out my watch; it was just upon twelve o'clock. Drunken revellers, I thought, turned out of the inn.

Swain's Lane winds about until you are close upon the road, and then there is a straight piece with fields upon either side. I looked ahead as I came to this latter bit, but there was no one to be seen, although the voices sounded closer and closer. I was walking on the turf beside the road, so that my footsteps falling upon the soft gra.s.s were inaudible. I pa.s.sed a gate leading into a field, and then I became aware that the voices were close to me on the other side of the hedge. Not caring to be seen lest I should get drawn into some drunken row, I stooped my head and shoulders, inconveniently high just then, and was in the act of pa.s.sing swiftly on when a name arrested me. "I tell you Hugh Atherton never _shall_ marry that girl!"

"And I tell you he _will_! You let every chance slip by you, you poor spiritless fool. He'll marry her, and come in for the best share, if not the whole of Gil Thorneley's money."

There was no mistaking the brogue of my Irish Anglo-French acquaintance of this evening--my sister's "last treasure-trove, the talented author, the rich man." But the other voice, whose was it? It sounded strange at first; then light began to dawn upon me. I knew it--yes, surely I knew it. Ha, by Jove! Lister Wilmot!--it must be Lister Wilmot's.

They were speaking again, quite unconscious of their auditor on the other side of the hedge.

"You are the biggest fool, and a scoundrel too, coming here, d.o.g.g.i.ng my footsteps, and following me about just to bring ruin upon me with your confounded interference; going _there_ too, and meeting the very man you ought to avoid, that lawyer fellow, Kavanagh; why, he'll scent you out in less than no time." (Much obliged to you, Mr. Wilmot, thought I, for your involuntary tribute to my shrewdness: it has been deserved this time at any rate.) "You must leave London at once--to-morrow, do you hear?--or I'll whisper a certain affair about, which may make this quarter of the world unpleasant to you."

"I'll not stir without that fifty pounds. You blow upon me, and I'll blow upon you in a quarter you wouldn't care to have those small bits of paper shown that I've got in my pocket-book here."

The remark seemed to have been untimely.

"Scoundrel!" shouted the other voice I believed to be Wilmot's, and I heard them close together and struggle.

At the same moment I leaped the gate, determined to make sure of their ident.i.ty; but with singular ill-luck I caught my foot against the topmost bar, and fell with no small force my whole length on the other side. The noise and sight of me disturbed the combatants, and before I could rise or recover myself, they had separated, and fled in opposite directions across the field. Pursuit was a vain thought. I had twisted my ankle in the fall, and for a few moments the pain was unbearable; when I could put my foot to the ground both fugitives were out of sight. There was nothing left for me but to hobble back, gain the road, and seize upon the first empty cab returning to London to convey me to my chambers.

I mentioned the adventure to Atherton on the following morning, and my conviction that Lister Wilmot was one of the two men.

"It is impossible," replied Hugh; "Lister was with me last evening till eleven o'clock, and then he went home to bed."

"Did you see him home?" I asked.

"Yes, and went in with him; saw him undressed, and ready to get into bed. He was not well, poor fellow. One of his bad colds seemed to be threatening him, and he was very out of spirits. I am afraid he's exceeding his allowance, and getting into debt. He asked me to lend, him twenty pounds for a month."

{449}

"Which of course you didn't do?"

"Which of course I did, and told him he was heartily welcome to it; but I wished he'd draw in his expenses, for I was certain if Uncle Gilbert heard of his being in difficulty, there would be no end to pay. I'll get him to make a clean breast of it some day soon to me, and see what I can do to help him and set him right."

So like Hugh, with his generous impulses ever ready to do a kindness.

"Well, but it is very odd. I could have sworn it was Lister in the field; as for the other fellow, why there is not the smallest shadow of a doubt about him. If I hadn't recognized his brogue, why, the words of his companion pointed him out as the De Vos of the dinner-party. Do you know such a man, Hugh?" and I gave a graphic description of him.

Hugh shook his head.

"Don't know such a bird as that, Jack. Can't think who it can be, nor what they both meant. The 'girl,' indeed! Did they mean Ada, forsooth?

I'd like to punch their skulls for daring to name her. I say, let's go to Lister's at once and ask him if he knows a man answering to the name De Vos."

We drove to Wilmot's lodgings in the Albany--he affected aristocratic-bachelor neighborhoods--and found him over a late breakfast, looking very pale and haggard. Hugh attacked him in his straightforward blunt manner.

"What did you go up to Highgate for, last night. Lister, when I thought you were going to bed?"

Wilmot's fork fell on the floor and he stooped to pick it up before answering. Then he looked up with an air of the greatest astonishment.

"Go up to Highgate last night! I! Are you mad, Hugh?"

"I heard your voice last night in a field close by the Highgate Road, or I never was more mistaken in my life," I said.

He turned his face to me: there was the most unaffected surprise and bewilderment written on it as he stared at me.

"Are you out of your senses too?" he asked at last with a loud laugh.

"Why, Hugh saw me into bed almost. You must have been wandering, or Mr. Craven's" (my brother-in-law) "wines were too potent for your sober brain."

I was completely at a nonplus. "Do you know that Mr. de Vos is in England?" I said, resolved to try another "dodge."

"Who is Mr. de Vos?" was the answer, given in the most unconcerned tone.

Hugh broke in: "Tell him all about it, John."

I did so, relating word for word what I had heard, with my eye fixed upon his face. He never flinched once, and there was not the smallest embarra.s.sment in his look or manner.

"You were of course entirely mistaken," he said; "I never left my room last night after Hugh went away. Of this Mr. de Vos I know nothing--not even by name."

There was nothing for it but to be satisfied, and yet somehow I was not. I suppose my old dislike of Wilmot got the better of me and made me distrustful. Then such dear--such precious interests had been called in question--were perhaps in danger; and I could not rid myself of the great anxiety which oppressed me.

The next move was after De Vos. He had utterly and totally disappeared by the time I had obtained his address from my sister and hunted out the wretched doubtful sort of lodgings he had inhabited near Leicester Square. So the affair died a natural death, and I left England for the Continent. Could I but have foreseen what my return would bring forth!

{450}

CHAPTER III.

THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING.

It was all true--dreadfully, awfully true--and no hideous dream.

Gilbert Thorneley was dead--poisoned, murdered; and Hugh Atherton was in the hands of justice, suspected, if not actually accused, of the murder. When I came back, sick and giddy, to consciousness, there was old Hardy bending over me with a face blanched almost as white as my own must have been, and Jones the detective standing by, the deepest concern written on his countenance. Do you know what it is, that "coming to," as women express it, after a sudden mental blow has prostrated you and hurled you into the dark oblivion of insensibility?

I daresay you do. You know what the return to life is; what the realization of the stunning evil which has befallen you. But G.o.d help you if you remember that your last words when conscious criminated the friend you would willingly die to save. G.o.d help you if you know you must be forced into admitting what you had rather cut out your tongue than utter, and which in your inadvertence or brainless stupidity you let pa.s.s your lips. I say again, heaven help you, for it is one of the bitterest moments of your life.

As the physical indisposition wore off, and the whole situation of affairs became clearer to my scattered senses, the remembrance of what I had done was maddening.

"Oh, blind fool," I cried, "not to see, not to know what I was doing!

Jones and Hardy, I call you both to witness most solemnly that I believe as firmly, as entirely in Mr. Atherton's innocence as I do in an eternal life to come. I charge you both, that, whatever testimony you may be forced to give, whatever miserable words have been wrung from me--I charge you both, by all you hold most sacred, to give evidence likewise that I believe him innocent."

"We will, sir," said the two men gravely.

Then a desperate idea seized me, and I motioned Hardy to leave the room.

"Jones," I said, when the clerk was gone, "you are a poor man, I know, and have many children to provide for. Get me off attending the inquest, and I will write you a cheque on the spot for any sum in reason you like to name."

"Bless your heart, sir, it an't in my power. Inspector Jackson has been in Wimpole street investigating it all; and I know your name's booked as one of the princ.i.p.al witnesses. You'll have your summons this evening for to-morrow, as safe as I'm here."

"Where is Mr. Atherton?" I asked.