CHAPTER XX
A LINK IN CLAUDIA'S FATE.
For who knew, she thought, what the amazement,
The irruption of clatter and blaze meant.
And if, in this minute of wonder,
No outlet 'mid lightning and thunder,
Lay broad and her shackles all shivered,
The captive at length was delivered?
—Robert Browning.
Claudia had awakened one morning with one of those nervous headaches that were becoming habitual to her. She had taken a narcotic sedative and gone to sleep again, and slept throughout the day.
It was night when she awoke again, and became immediately conscious of an unusual commotion in the castle—a commotion that reached her ears, even over the thick drugget with which the stairs and halls were covered, and through the strong doors and heavy hangings with which her chamber was protected. Whether it was this disturbance that had broken her rest, she did not really know. She listened intently. There was a swift and heavy running to and fro, and a confusion of tongues, giving voices in mingled tones of fear, grief, rage, consternation, expostulation, and every key of passionate emotion and excitement.
Lady Vincent reached forth her hand and rang the bell, and then listened, but no one answered it. She rang again, with no better success. After waiting some little time she rang a violent peal, that presently brought the housekeeper hurrying into the room, pale as death, and nearly out of breath.
"Mrs. Murdock, I have rung three times. I have never before had occasion to ring twice for attendance," said Lady Vincent, in a displeased tone.
"Ou, me leddy, ye will e'en forgi'e me this ance, when ye come to hear the cause," panted the housekeeper.
"What has happened?" demanded Claudia.
"Ou, me leddy! sic an' awfu' event."
"What is it, then?"
"Just murther—no less!"
"Murder!" exclaimed Claudia, starting up and gazing at the speaker with horror-distended eyes.
"Just murther!" gasped the housekeeper, sinking down in the armchair beside her lady's bed, because in truth her limbs gave way beneath her.
"Who? what? For Heaven's sake, speak!"
"The puir bit lassie—" began the dame; but her voice failed, and she covered her face with her apron and began to howl.
Claudia gazed at her in consternation and horror for a minute, and then again demanded:
"What lassie? Who is murdered? For the Lord's sake try to answer me!"
"Puir Ailsie! puir wee bit lassie!" wailed the woman.
"Ailsie! what has happened to her?" demanded Lady Vincent, bewildered with panic.
"She's found murthered!" howled the housekeeper.
"Ailsie! Heaven of heavens, no!" cried Claudia, wound up to a pitch of frenzied excitement.
"Aye is she; found lying outside the castle wall, wi' her puir throat cut fra ear to ear!" shrieked the dame, covering up her face to smother the cries she could not suppress.
"Mercy of Heaven, how horrible!" exclaimed Lady Vincent, throwing her hands up to her face, and falling back on her pillow.
"Puir Ailsie! puir, bonnie lassie!" howled the dame, rocking her body to and fro.
"Who did it?" gasped Claudia, under her breath.
"Ah! that's what we canna come at; naebody kens."
"I cannot rest here any longer. Ring the bell, Mrs. Murdock, and hand me my dressing gown. I must get up and go downstairs. Good Heavens! a poor, innocent girl murdered in this house, and her murderer allowed to escape!" exclaimed Claudia, throwing the bed- clothes off her and rising in irrepressible excitement.
"Ah, me leddy, I fear, I greatly fear, she was no that innocent as your leddyship thinks, puir bairn! Nae that I would say onything about it, only it's weel kenned noo. Puir Ailsie! she lost her innocence before she lost her life, me leddy. And I greatly misdoubt, he that reft her of the ane reft her of the ither!" sobbed the dame, as she assisted Claudia to put on her crimson silk dressing gown.
"Now give me a shawl; I must go below."
"Nay, nay, me leddy, dinna gang! It's awfu' wark doon there. They've brought her in, and laid her on the ha' table, and a' the constables and laborers are there, forbye the servants. It's nae place for you, me leddy. Your leddyship could na stand it."
"Anyone who has stood six weeks of the ordinary life in this house can stand anything else under the sun!" exclaimed Claudia, wrapping herself in the large India shawl that was handed her, and hurrying downstairs.
She was met by old Katie, who was on her way to answer the bell that had been rung for her, and who, as soon as she saw her mistress, raised both her hands in deprecation, and in her terror began to speak as if Lady Vincent were still a child and she was still her nurse and keeper:
"Now, Miss Claudia, honey, you jes' go right straight back ag'in! Dis aint no place for sich as you, chile. You mustn't go down dar and look at dat gashly objeck, honey. 'Cause no tellin' what de quoncequinces mightn't be. Now mind what your ole Aunt Katie say to you, honey, and turn back like a good chile."
While old Katie was coaxing her Lady Vincent was looking over the balustrade down into the hall below, which was filled to suffocation with a motley crowd, who were pressing around some object extended upon the table, and which Claudia could only make out in the obscurity by the gleam of the white cloth with which it was covered.
Without stopping to answer old Katie, she pushed her aside and hurried below.
The crowd had done with loud talking and an awe-struck silence prevailed, broken only now and then by a half-suppressed murmur of fear or horror.
Forgetting her fastidiousness for once, Lady Vincent pushed her way through this crowd of "unwashed" workmen, whose greasy, dusty, and begrimed clothes soiled her bright, rich raiment as she passed, and among whom the mingled fumes of tobacco, whisky, garlic, and coal- smoke formed "the rankest compound of villainous smells that ever offended nostrils."
Claudia did not mind all this. She pressed on, and they gave way for her a little as she approached the table. Three constables stood around it to guard the dead body from the touch of meddlesome hands. On seeing Lady Vincent with the air of one having authority, the constable that guarded the head of the table guessed at her rank, and officiously turned down the white sheet that covered the dead body, and revealed the horrible object beneath—the ghastly face fallen back, with its chin dropped, and its mouth and eyes wide open and rigid in death; and the gaping red wound across the throat cut so deep that it nearly severed the head from the body. With a suppressed shriek Claudia clapped her hands to her face to shut out the awful sight.
At the same moment she felt her arm grasped by a firm hand, and her name called in a stern voice: "Lady Vincent, why are you here? Retire at once to your chamber."
Claudia, too much overcome with horror to dispute the point, suffered the viscount to draw her out of the crowd to the foot of the stairs. Here she recovered herself sufficiently to inquire:
"What has been done, my lord? What steps have been taken towards the discovery and arrest of this poor girl's murderer?"
"All that is possible has been done, or is doing. The coroner has been summoned; the inspector has been sent for; a telegram has been dispatched to Scotland Yard in London for an experienced detective. Rest easy, Lady Vincent. Here, Mistress Gorilla! Attend your lady to her apartment."
This last order was addressed to Katie, who was still lingering on the stairs, and who was glad to receive this charge from Lord Vincent.
"Come along, Miss Claudia, honey," she said, as soon as the viscount had left them; "come along. We can't do no good, not by staying here no longer. My lordship was right dar. Dough why he do keep on a- calling of me Mrs. Gorilla is more'n I can 'count for. Not dat I objects to de name; 'cause I do like the name. I think's it a perty name, sweet perty name, so soft and musicky; only you see, chile, it aint mine; and I can't think what could put it in my lordship's head to think it was."
Lady Vincent paid no attention to the innocent twaddle of poor old Katie, though at a less horrible moment it might have served to amuse her. She hurried as fast as her agitation would permit her from the scene of the dreadful tragedy, unconscious how closely this poor murdered girl's fate would be connected with her own future destiny. She gained the shelter of her own apartments and shut herself up there, while the investigations into the murder proceeded.
It is not necessary for us to go deeply into the revolting details of the events that followed. The coroner arrived the same evening, impaneled his jury and commenced the inquest. Soon after the inspector came from Banff. And the next morning a skillful detective arrived from London. And the investigation commenced in earnest. Many witnesses were examined; extensive searches were made, and all measures taken to find out some clew to the murderer, but in vain. The police held possession of the premises for nearly a week, and the coroner's jury sat day after day; but all to no purpose, as far as the discovery of the perpetrator of the crime was concerned. This seemed one of the obstinate murders that, in spite of the old proverb to the contrary, will not "out."
On Saturday night the baffled coroner's jury returned their unsatisfactory verdict: "The deceased, Ailsie Dunbar, came to her death by a wound inflicted in her throat with a razor held in the hands of some person unknown to the jury."
And the house was rid of coroner, jury, inspector, detective, country constables and all; and the poor girl's body was permitted to be laid in the earth; and the household breathed freely again.
The same evening Lord Vincent, being alone in his dressing room, rang his bell; and his valet as usual answered it.
"Come in here, Frisbie. Shut the door after you, and stand before me," said his lordship.
"Yes, my lord," answered the servant, securing the door and standing before his master.
Lord Vincent sat with his back to the window and his face in the shadow, while the light from the window fell full on the face of the valet, who stood before him. This was a position Lord Vincent always managed to secure, when he wished to read the countenance of his interlocutor, without exposing his own.
"Well, Frisbie, they are gone," said his lordship, looking wistfully into the face of his servant.
"Yes, my lord," replied the latter, looking down.
"And—without discovering the murderer of Ailsie Dunbar," he continued, in a meaning voice.
"Yes, my lord," replied the valet, with the slightest possible quaver in his tone.
"That must be a very great relief to your feelings, Frisbie," said the viscount.
"I—have not the honor to understand your lordship," faltered
Frisbie, changing color.
"Haven't you? Why, that is strange! My meaning is clear enough. I say it must be a very great relief to your feelings, Frisbie, to have the inquest so well over, and all the law-officers out of the house. You must have endured agonies of terror while they were here. I know I should in your place. Why, I expected every day that you would bolt, though that would have been the worst thing you could possibly have done, too, for it would have been sure to direct suspicion towards you, and you would have been certain to be recaptured before you could have got out of England," said Lord Vincent coolly.
"I—I—my lord—I have not the honor—to—to—under——" began the man, but his teeth chattered so that he could not enunciate another syllable.
"Oh, yes! you have the honor, if you consider it such. You understand me well enough. What is the use of attempting to deceive me? Frisbie, I was an eye-witness to the death of Ailsie Dunbar," said his lordship emphatically, and fixing his eyes firmly upon the face of his valet.
Down fell the wretch upon his knees, with his hands clasped, his face blanched, and his teeth chattering.
"Oh, my lord, mercy, mercy! It was unpremeditated, indeed it was! it was an accident! it was done in the heat of passion! and—and—she did it herself!" gasped the wretch, so beside himself with fright that he did not clearly know what he was talking about.
"Frisbie, stop lying. Did it herself, eh? I saw you do the deed. The razor was in your hands. She struggled and begged, poor creature, and cut her poor hands in her efforts to save her throat; but you completed your purpose effectually before I could appear and prevent you from murdering her. Then I kept your secret, since no good could have come of my telling it."
"Mercy, mercy, my lord! indeed it was unpremeditated! It was done in the heat of passion. She had driven me mad with jealousy!"
"Bosh! what do you suppose I care whether you committed the crime in hot blood or cold blood? whether it was the result of a momentary burst of frenzy or of a long premeditated and carefully arranged plan? It is enough for me to know that I saw you do the deed. You murdered that girl, and if the coroner's jury had not been just about the stupidest lot of donkeys that ever undertook to sit on a case, you would be now in jail waiting your trial for murder before the next assizes."
"Mercy, mercy, my lord! I am in your power!"
"Hold your tongue and get up off your knees and listen to me, you cowardly knave. Don't you know that if I had wished to hang you I could have done so by lodging information against you? Nonsense! I don't want to hang you. I think, with the Quaker, that hanging is the worst use you can put a man to. Now, I don't want to put you to that use. I have other uses for you. Get up, you precious knave!"
"Oh, my lord! put me to any use your lordship wishes, and no matter what it is, I will serve you faithfully in it!" said the wretch, rising from his knees and standing in a cowed and deprecating manner before his master.
"It is perfectly clear to me, Frisbie, that you settled that girl to silence a troublesome claimant of whom you could not rid yourself in any other way."
"Your lordship knows everything. It was so, my lord. She was all the time bothering me about broken promises and all that."
"And so you settled all her claims by one blow. Well, you have got rid of the woman that troubled you; and now I mean that you shall help me to get rid of one who troubles me."
"In—in—in the same manner, my lord?" gasped the man, in an accession of deadly terror.
"No, you insupportable fool! I am not a master butcher, to give you such an order as that. Noblemen are not cut-throats, you knave! You shall rid me of my troublesome woman in a safer way than that. And you shall do it as the price of my silence as to your own little affair."
"I am your lordship's obedient, humble servant. Your lordship will do what you please with me. I am absolutely and unreservedly at your lordship's disposal," whined the criminal.
"Well, I should think you were, when I hold one end of a rope of which the other end is around your neck. Come closer and stoop down until you bring your ear to a level with my lips, for I must speak low," said his lordship.
The man obeyed.
And Lord Vincent confided to his confederate a plan against the peace and honor of his viscountess of so detestable and revolting a nature that even this ruthless assassin shrunk in loathing and disgust from the thought of becoming a participator in it. But he was, as he had said, absolutely and unreservedly at the disposal of Lord Vincent, who held one end of the rope of which the other was around his own neck, and so he ended in becoming the confederate and instrument of the viscount.
When this was all arranged Lord Vincent dismissed the valet with the words:
"Now be at ease, Frisbie; for as long as you are faithful to me I will be silent in regard to you."
And as the second dinner-bell had rung some little time before, Lord Vincent stepped before the glass, brushed his hair, and went downstairs.
As soon as he had left the room another person appeared upon the scene. Old Katie came out from the thick folds of a window curtain and stood in the center of the room with up-lifted hands and up- rolled eyes, and an expression of countenance indescribable by any word in our language.
For more than a minute, perhaps while one could slowly count a hundred, she stood thus. And then, dropping her hands and lowering her eyes, she walked soberly up to Lord Vincent's tall dressing- glass, plucked the parti-colored turban off her head and looked at herself, muttering:
"No! it aint white, nor likewise gray! dough I did think, when dat creeping coldness come stealing through to roots of my h'ar, when I heerd dem wilyuns at deir deblish plot, as ebery libbing ha'r on my head was turned on a suddint white as snow; as I've heerd tell of happening to people long o' fright. But dar! my ha'r is as good as new, dough it has had enough to turn it gray on a suddint in dis las' hour! Well, laws! I do think as Marse Ishmael Worth mus' be somefin of a prophet, as well as a good deal of a lawyer! He telled me to watch ober de peace and honor of Lady Vincent. Yes, dem was his berry words—peace and honor. Well, laws! little did I think how much dey would want watching ober. Anyways, I've kep' my word and done my duty. And I've found out somefin as all de crowners, and constables and law-fellows couldn't find out wid all deir larnin'. And dat is who kilt poor misfortunate Miss Ailsie, poor gal! And I've found out somefin worse 'an dat, dough people might think there couldn't be nothing worse; but deir is. And dat is dis deblish plot agin my ladyship. Oh, dem debils! Hanging is too good for my lordship and his sham wally—wally sham! but it's all de same. And now I go right straight and tell my ladyship all about it," said Katie, settling her turban on her head and hurrying from the room.
She met Lady Vincent, elegantly dressed in a rose-colored brocade and adorned with pearls, on her way to the dinner-table.
"Oh, my ladyship, I've found out somefin dreadful! I must tell you all about it!" she exclaimed, in excitement, as she stopped her mistress.
"Not now, Katie. Dinner is waiting. Go into my dressing room and stop there until I come. I will not stay long in the drawing room this evening," said Lady Vincent, who thought that Katie's news would prove to be only some fresh rumors concerning the murder of poor Ailsie.
"My ladyship, you had better stop now and hear me," pleaded the old woman.
"I tell you dinner is waiting, Katie," said Lady Vincent, hurrying past her.
Ah! she had better have stopped then, if she had only known it. Old Katie groaned in the spirit and went to the dressing room as she was bid.
She sat down before the fire and looked at the clock on the chimney piece. It was just seven.
"Dat funnelly dinner will keep my ladyship an hour at the very latest bit. It will be eight o'clock afore she comes back, Laws-a- massy, what shall I do?" grunted the old woman impatiently.
Slowly, slowly, passed that hour of waiting. The clock struck eight.
"She'll be here every minute now," said old Katie, with a sigh of relief.
But minute after minute passed and Claudia did not come. A half an hour slipped away. Old Katie in her impatience got up and walked about the room. She heard the rustle of silken drapery, and peeped out. It was only Mrs. Dugald, in her rich white brocade dress, passing into her own apartments.
"Nasty, wenemous, pison sarpint! I'll fix you out yet!" muttered old Katie between her teeth, with a perfectly diabolical expression of countenance, as she shook her head at the vanishing figure of the beauty; for that was the unlucky way in which poor Katie's black phiz expressed righteous indignation.
"I do wonder what has become of my ladyship. This is a-keeping of her word like a ladyship oughter, aint it now? I go and look for her," said Katie.
But just as she had opened the door for that purpose her eyes fell upon the figure of the viscount, creeping with stealthy, silent, cat-like steps towards the apartments of Mrs. Dugald, in which he disappeared.
"Ah ha! dat's somefin' else. Somefin' goin' on in dere. Well, if I don't ax myself to dat party, my name's not old Aunt Katie Mortimer, dat's all!" said the old woman in glee, as she cautiously stole from the room and approached the door leading into Mrs. Dugald's apartments.
When at the door, which was ajar, she peeped in. The suite was arranged upon the same plan as Lady Vincent's own. As Katie peered in, she saw through the vista of three rooms into the dressing room, which was the last of the suite. Before the dressing-room fire she saw the viscount and Mrs. Dugald standing, their faces towards the fire; their backs towards Katie.
She cautiously opened the door and stepped in, closing it silently behind her. Then she crept through the intervening rooms and reached the door of the dressing room, which was draped around with heavy velvet hangings, and she concealed herself in their folds, where she could see and hear everything that passed.
"How long is this to go on? Do you know that the presence of my rival maddens me every hour of the day? Are you not afraid—you would be, if you knew me!—that I should do some desperate deed? I tell you that I am afraid of myself! I cannot always restrain my impulses, Malcolm. There are moments when I doubt whether you are not playing me false. And at such times I am in danger of doing some desperate deed that will make England ring with the hearing of it," said Mrs. Dugald, with passionate earnestness.
"Faustina, you know that I adore you. Be patient a few days longer— a very few days. The time is nearly ripe. I have at last found the instrument of which I have been so much in need. This man, Frisbie. He is completely in my power, and will be a ready tool. I will tell you the whole scheme. But stop! first I must secure this interview from interruption. Not a word of this communication must be overheard by any chance listener," said Lord Vincent.
And to poor old Katie's consternation he passed swiftly to the outer door of the suite of rooms, locked it and put the key in his pocket and returned to the dressing room, the door of which remained open.
"Dere! if I aint cotch like an old rat in a trap, you may take my hat! Don't care! I gwine hear all dey got to say. An' if dey find me dey can't hang me for it, dat's one good thing! And maybe dey won't find me, if I keep still till my lordship—perty lordship he is— unlocks de door and goes out, and den I slip out myself, just as I slipped in, and nobody none de wiser. Only if I don't sneeze. I feel dreadful like sneezing. Nobody ever had such an unlucky nose as I have got. Laws, laws, if I was to sneeze!" thought old Katie to herself as she lurked behind the draperies.
But soon every sense was absorbed in listening to the villainous plot that Lord Vincent was unfolding to his companion. It was the very same plot that he had communicated to his valet, the atrocity of which had shocked even that cut-throat. It did not shock Faustina, however. She listened with avidity. She co-operated with zeal. She suggested such modifications and improvements for securing the success of the conspiracy, and the safety of the conspirators, as only her woman's tact, inspired by the demon, could invent.
"Oh, the she-sarpint! the deadly, wenemous, pisonous sarpint!" shuddered Katie, in her hiding-place. "I've heern enough this night to hang the shamwally, and send all the rest on 'em to Bottommy Bay. And I'll do it, too, if ever I live to get out'n this room alive."
But at that instant the catastrophe that Katie had dreaded occurred.
Katie sneezed—once, twice, thrice: "Hick-ket-choo! Hick-ket-choo!
Hick-ket-choo!"
Had a bombshell exploded in that room it could not have excited a greater commotion. Lord Vincent sprang up, and in an instant had the eavesdropper by the throat.
"Now, you old devil, what have you got to say for yourself?" demanded the viscount, in a voice of repressed fury, as he shook Katie.
"I say—Cuss my nose! There never was sich a misfortunate nose on anybody's face—a-squoking out dat way in onseasonable hours!" cried Katie.
"How dare you be caught eavesdropping in these rooms, you wretch?" demanded the viscount, giving her another shake.
"And why wouldn't I, you grand vilyun? And you her a-plotting of your deblish plots agin my own dear babyship—I mean my ladyship, as is like my own dear baby! And 'wretch' yourself! And how dare you lay your hands on me? on me, as has heern enough this precious night to send you down to the bottom of Bottommy Bay, to work in de mud, wid a chain and a weight to your leg, you rascal! and a man with a whip over your head, you vilyun! 'Stead o' standin' dere sassin' at me, you ought to go down on your bare knees, and beg and pray me to spare you! Dough you needn't, neither, 'cause I wouldn't do it! no! not if you was to wallow under my feet, I wouldn't. 'Cause soon as eber I gets out'n dis room I gwine right straight to de queen and tell her all about it; and ax her if she's de mist'ess of England and lets sich goings on as dese go on in her kingdom. And if I can't get speech of the queen, I going to tell de fust magistet I can find—dere! And you, too, you whited salt-peter! you ought dis minute to be pickin' of oakum in a crash gown and cropped hair! And you shall be, too, afore many days, ef eber I lives to get out'n dis house alive!" shrieked Katie, shaking her fist first at one culprit and then at the other, and glaring inextinguishable hatred and defiance upon both. For righteous wrath had rendered her perfectly insensible to fear.
Meanwhile the viscount held her in a death-grip; his face was ghastly pale; his teeth tightly clenched; his eyes starting.
"Faustina, she is as ignorant as dirt, but her threats are not vain. If she leaves this room alive all is lost!" he exclaimed in breathless excitement.
"She must not leave it alive!" said the fell woman.
Katie heard the fatal words, and opened her mouth to scream for help. But the fingers of the viscount tightened around her throat and strangled the scream in its utterance. And he bore her down to the floor and placed his knee on her chest. And there was murder in the glare with which he watched her death-throes.
"Faustina!" he whispered hoarsely, "help me! have you nothing to shorten this?"
She flew to a cabinet, from which she took a small vial, filled with a colorless liquid, and brought it to him.
He disengaged one hand to take it, and then stooped over his victim.
And in a few moments Katie ceased to struggle.
Then he arose from his knees with a low laugh, whispering.
"It is all right."