CHAPTER XXXV. STELFOX IS RETICENT NO LONGER.
Mr. Bradfield awoke, on the morning after his abrupt departure from Wyngham, with a start of surprise at finding himself in a strange place.
He had been troubled by no pangs of a guilty conscience, not even by fears of an imaginary pursuer. Accusations might be made against him certainly, some of which could be supported by evidence which might weigh heavily with a judge and jury. But the real foundation of his misdeeds was one so astounding, requiring so much digging and delving before a good case could be made out, that he might have remained securely at Wyngham for months to come, might almost indeed have defied Dick and the law to do their worst, if it had not been for Stelfox.
What Stelfox knew his late master was not quite sure; but the man’s respectful reticence during long years, during which his suspicions of foul play had grown into certainties, had so strongly impressed the master, that Mr. Bradfield had never felt safe since Stelfox had left his service.
So that Mr. Bradfield, for whom Wyngham House and its treasures had lost the charm of novelty, had thought it safest, as well as pleasantest, to decamp, leaving only the bare bones of his stolen property to be wrangled over in litigation.
What had woke him he did not know. He seemed to have jumped from the deepest, sweetest slumber into broad wakefulness. He looked out at the sky, which he could just see between the white dimity curtains of the window, and he saw a bright little line of light which showed him that the summer sun was already high in the heavens. He looked at the foot of the bed, and saw, instead of the brass and beaten iron-work of his own magnificent bedstead, the polished mahogany of the old-fashioned four-poster. Then he remembered where he was, heaved a sigh of satisfaction at having left the anxieties of Wyngham behind him, and turned over in bed for another doze.
Then he saw what it was that had woke him. Standing beside his bedside, as respectfully as ever, was Stelfox. Then Mr. Bradfield felt that the way of the transgressor is indeed hard. He sat up in bed, and tried to look merely surprised.
“Hallo, Stelfox, is that you?” he said, boisterously.
“Yes, sir, it is I,” answered Stelfox, who was always correct.
“Well, and what are you doing here? Nothing happened, I hope?”
He was not yet quite warmed to the world and its doings, so, although he was undoubtedly annoyed and alarmed by the appearance of his late servant, he did not quite appreciate the full significance of this singular intrusion.
“Well, sir, I can’t exactly say that nothing has happened,” said Stelfox, still looking down. “I came down from London to Wyngham yesterday afternoon, sir, to see you. But I saw Mr. Marrable instead, sir.”
All this was said quite simply. But when his speech was finished, Stelfox came to a sudden stop—a nasty, significant stop.
“Mr. Marrable! Oh, yes,” said Mr. Bradfield, assuming more cheerfulness of speech as his thoughts lost it.
“He told me, sir, about the will made by Mr. Gilbert Wryde.”
“Well, what has that to do with me?”
“Well, sir, it has a good deal to do with you now that Mr. Richard is of age and proved to be sane, I think. For, of course, he ought to come into his property.”
There was a pause. For the thousand and first time Mr. Bradfield was asking himself whether this was a man to be bribed. He decided that at this stage of affairs the experiment must be tried.
“Look here, Stelfox,” said he, “you’re an honest man, and you want to see justice done to everybody, I’m sure.”
“I do, sir,” said Stelfox, modestly.
“And, in consideration of the fact that I’ve not been a bad master to you, or an ungenerous one for ten years, you would like, I am sure, to see justice done to me, too?”
“I should, sir,” answered Stelfox readily, but in a manner which left Mr. Bradfield to doubt whether the inflection of his voice was not “nasty.”
“Well, then,” pursued Mr. Bradfield, “see. Mr. Wryde, Master Richard’s father, left me a large sum—you see I don’t deny it was a large sum—in trust for his idiot son.”
But here Stelfox at last looked up.
“Idiot son, sir!” he interrupted, promptly. “But Mr. Marrable assures me that, so far from being an idiot, Master Richard was considered a very bright child, even after the scarlet fever had made him deaf.”
“Mr. Marrable assures you! But what’s Mr. Marrable? An idiot himself!” interrupted Mr. Bradfield, impatiently.
“And,” went on Stelfox, steadily, not heeding the interruption, “he says he knows it was old Mr. Wryde’s intention to take or send his little son to England, as it was thought his hearing could be restored. Indeed, sir,” pursued he, with uncanny smoothness, “Mr. Richard has recovered his hearing in a wonderful manner since he has been in London, and under the care of a specialist, sir.”
Here Mr. Bradfield broke out with sudden sharpness:
“Oh, oh! so he’s been with you in London, has he?”
His tone was by this time so frankly inimical, that Stelfox answered boldly:
“Why, yes, sir; it was natural for him to stay with the only friend he had.”
“Then you helped him to get away, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir, after I discovered the drugged wine. I’ve kept it, sir; kept the decanters just as they were left that night. I thought they might be wanted, perhaps, especially after the fire, sir.”
This was frankness indeed. Mr. Bradfield changed colour.
“Do you mean to insinuate that I wanted to make away with the fellow?” he asked, abruptly.
“I only mean, sir, that I thought what I could prove about the decanters that night, and what Miss Abercarne could prove about having seen you come out of the east wing just before the fire, and what Mr. Marrable could prove about old Mr. Wryde’s intentions, and what the will itself could prove about the way you carried them out—I thought, I say, sir, that all these things together might form a very good case, and that with a clever lawyer at his back he might hope to recover his property.”
As each fresh charge was mentioned, John Bradfield’s frown grew deeper, and the lines about his mouth grew harder and more unyielding. At the end he turned his head, and sought the man’s eye steadily. And the man at last looked steadily at him.
“And what, if it is not too straightforward a question, what share were you to have in the final distribution?”
“Well, sir,” answered the man straightforwardly, and in exactly the same tone as before, “I may say that I expected not to be forgotten.”
“Ah, ah!” chuckled Mr. Bradfield, triumphantly. “I thought not. Now we’re coming to it. Now I’m going abroad, as you see. I don’t admit the truth of a single one of these accusations, not a single one, mind. But I see you could make out a very plausible tale, for you’re a clever fellow, Stelfox, and I see I could be worried to death and half ruined besides, before the thing was settled. So look here: tell me what you want to keep your d——d mouth shut?”
Stelfox went on quite placidly, as if the manner in which the command was given had been rather flattering than otherwise:
“I want you, sir, to do the right thing by Master Richard. I am sure, sir, begging your pardon for having to say such a thing, that he will not be too particular in the matter of looking into past accounts.”
But Mr. Bradfield’s not too sweet temper had been rising, and at these words he gave it vent.
“D——n your impudence!” roared he, glaring at the man with so much ferocity that even the calm Stelfox moved a step nearer to the foot of the bed. “Do you think I’m going to be mastered by you, or that escaped whelp? No. D——n you both for a couple of accomplices who want to rob me. You can go to the d——l both of you, and I’ll be d——d if either of you shall get a penny out of me. Get out of my sight, or I’ll have the landlord prosecuted for allowing you to come in!”
Rather to his surprise, Stelfox withdrew at once in exactly the same manner as if he had only come in to bring the gentleman’s shaving-water. Mr. Bradfield, breathing heavily from rage and excitement, got up, turned the key in the lock, and began to dress.
He was in a passion still, so indignant with Stelfox for refusing to be bribed that he quite felt that he was an injured person. He told himself, however, with a chuckle, when he had got a little cooler, that neither Stelfox nor anybody else could prevent his crossing to Flushing by the next boat, and getting out of jurisdiction before matters had got far enough for a warrant to be issued for him. At the same time there was just a little undercurrent of anxiety in his mind, the result of the extreme promptitude with which the cunning Stelfox had traced him out, and the astuteness with which he had framed an excuse to induce the attendants at the hotel to show him up to the room of the gentleman he asked for.
“But how on earth did he get in?” Mr. Bradfield asked himself, remembering that he had locked his door before going to bed. On examination, however, the lock proved to have been defective, so that Stelfox had found his entry easy.
By this time Mr. Bradfield was fully dressed, and he turned to the head of the bed where, under the damask curtain, he had hidden his precious bag of securities on the previous night.
The bag was no longer there.